


any tithe that holds can be broken

by inamorromani



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, M/M, Multi, OH ALSO NO FREAK SHIT! SORRY, Original Characters - Freeform, Slow Burn, Some Canon-Typical Violence, deeply self indulgent, nb izuna, nobody is white lol, prequel to another canon divergent fic that im...working on, some implied/referenced abuse, sort of a fix it fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2020-08-13 17:49:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 42,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20178292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamorromani/pseuds/inamorromani
Summary: THIS FIC IS UNBETA-ED AND REALLY BAD BUT IM EDITING IT (AS OF 4 APRIL 2020) AND GONNA UPLOAD THE LAST CHAPTER SOON MUAH MUAH





	1. I/prelude

**Author's Note:**

> this is........ deeply self indulgent. 
> 
> i wanted to reapproach the founders era under a different set of circumstances; hashirama and madara dont have to inherit their fathers' trauma, tobirama and izuna are able to reconcile their differences and develop some semblance of a meaningful relationship, etc., etc.
> 
> eventually, this AU comes full circle and these relationships lend themselves to sasuke and naruto in a continuation that im working on, slowly but steadily.
> 
> english is not my first language, and i appreciate any constructive feedback.

There’s snow beneath Izuna’s remains, white and soft as down and adorned with coils of steam. His chest is bare, still and halved by a deep cut from stem to stern. There's blood browning beneath his fingernails- Tajima's, no doubt, if the deep, red scratches on his face are anything to go by- lines in the snow from fire jutsu, kunai scattered across the earth like pine needles. 

Madara draws a steadying breath as Tajima flips a kunai in his hand, sucks his teeth. His breath is a death rattle in his chest, all dead tissue and burn scars. Maybe, Madara thinks hopefully, Tajima had finally found a genjutsu that worked on him. He brings his hands unsteadily to his chin in a familiar seal. 

“Release,” he murmurs. His voice comes out shaky, comes out strained.

Nothing changes. His sharingan whirl to life. 

He tries again.

“Release.”

Izuna is lying there still, a fresh bead of blood rolling down his cheek from the corner of his mouth. Madara swallows thickly, taking a tentative step forward. He feels small, almost afraid, mostly disbelieving. Izuna was strong; he was far too stubborn to die, far too stubborn to die like this. 

Somehow, Tajima manages to look both disgusted and disaffected, his face a remorseless, plaster mask. His eyes stay narrow as they flick up and down Izuna’s body, hawklike, cruel and unrepenting. 

Madara doesn’t have to ask his father what happened. The question dies on his tongue and leaves a sour taste in his mouth. 

Even as a child, genjutsu had never worked on Madara. Tajima’s labors were wasted, and though Madara had been a prodigy by most standards, his sharingan had been activated later than any of his brothers’, and his mangekyo, as far as Tajima knew, had never been activated at all. If this was what it took, Izuna’s death was ultimately in the best interest of the clan. 

When Madara’s composure cracks, his eyes change, and Tajima nearly cries out in relief. 

Perhaps this had not been for nothing then, though Tajima had tortured Izuna for years in an attempt to awaken Madara’s mangekyo. It was such wasted energy, Tajima thought bitterly, all those merciless beatings, all those pointlessly bloodied knuckles, pointlessly bloodied bedrolls, all that wasted gauze and alcohol. 

Ultimately, Tajima did what he thought he needed to do. Izuna was smart, beautiful, expendable. 

It had been Madara’s insolence, his stubbornness. Maybe Tajima bore some responsibility; he was never quite quick enough to get his hands on the Senju heir instead of one of his own sons. In the end, it seemed fair- his weakness cost him his sons. Madara's stubbornness cost him his brothers.

No, Tajima thinks, tossing his kunai aside in the snow, genjutsu had never worked on Madara. 

Madara was soft. He was smart, sure, smarter than most of the adults in their clan, but he was overgenerous, trusting, deeply compassionate. He was truly his mother’s son, Azami’s spitting image with his wild hair and unpredictable temper and limitless comity. 

Madara’s eyes were coal dark like hers, too, icy as the evening, and pride swells in Tajima’s chest, even as he sees steam rise from Madara’s shoulders in coils.  
Madara terrified Tajima. Excited him. In the end, he wouldn't want to leave the clan to anybody else. 

“It’s taken us long enough,” Tajima says flatly, “Izuna would be so proud of you.” 

Madara grits his teeth. He looks down at Izuna again, now that he’s closer, and bites his tongue to keep something down as it worms its way up through his stomach. He can’t tell if it’s bile or a poorly stifled sob. 

“It’s what he would have wanted,” Tajima continues, sounding a bit exasperated. Madara watches, expression steely and grim, as Tajima cleans his kunai on his sleeve, points his toe and roll's Izuna’s head to the side with his foot. “He’ll be happy to die like this.” 

There’s a raised row of cuts running from Tajima’s temple to his jaw leeching little beads of blood down the side of his face, a microcosm of the suffering he’d inflicted upon Izuna. 

“He’s-” Madara swallows around the crack in his voice, “He’s still alive, then?” 

“Hm?” Tajima frowns, nudging Izuna with his foot again, loosing another dribble of blood from his slack jaw. “To have died like this, then.” He spares a last, performatively morose glance at Izuna, and offers Madara his hand, dried blood cracking on his palm as he spreads his fingers in an invitation. 

“Come here, Madara,” Tajima says softly, “Let me see.” 

Madara stands still, his eyes dark, searching, and brimming with tears. Tajima clicks his tongue. 

He cradles Madara’s jaw in his hand, tilting his head from side to side and studying the pattern of his mangekyo. “He’s with your mother, now,” Tajima cooes, “That’s what you’d like for him, isn’t it? Isn’t it worth it to you, knowing he’s at peace, now?” 

There’s a tense beat of silence, an instant of hesitation before Madara seizes Tajima’s wrist, his opposite hand connecting firmly with the underside of his elbow and popping it roughly out of place. Tajima makes a startled sound- and then he screams. Madara throws him back against the earth, punches the center of his chest, the juncture of his jaw until he feels bone shatter against bone. 

Tajima shrieks until Madara shatters his ribs with the heels of his palms, presses the air from his lungs. 

When all is said and done, Madara cleans his fingers in the snow. He's sure to drag his body a short distance away so the lapping flames of his funeral pyre can’t reach Izuna.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u for all the love on the first chapter <3 working out a consistent upload schedule with work n school, probably fridays and mondays. expect things to be much less graphic after this chapter too :)
> 
> as always, help with grammar/language is appreciated!
> 
> EDIT 16 august because ao3 messed up formatting >:(

For all of his tremendous strength, Hashirama’s sensor abilities were less than adequate, but he had always had the uncanny ability to sense Madara’s chakra, even at distances Tobirama would consider absurd. 

He had taken off in Madara’s direction the instant he felt his chakra flare, consequences be damned. It was a knee-jerk reaction- but there was something downright exhilirating about feeling Madara so close. He had done so before, jumping in during a spat with a small squad of Inuzuka when they were teeenagers, thrown his body between Madara and one of their snapping ninken at the last possible second. He'd only seen Madara two, maybe three times since then.

It took Hashirama scarcely more than ten minutes to reach the edge of the clearing where Madara knelt in the snow aside what looked like a hastily built funeral pyre, flanked on each side by his advisors. 

He ducks behind a tree, fingers splayed against the trunk as he takes stock of the situation. Madara’s chakra has faded to a comparative simmer, though the air feels unusually sticky. Hashirama smacks his lips. 

A sudden, broken sound tears from Madara’s throat, and Hashirama frowns. The Uchiha’s chakra has taken on a subtly unfamiliar quality- a desperate one. He takes a careful step forward. Snow crunches beneath his boots, and he grimaces. Madara's aides stand upright, the smaller one with pretty lavender hair whirling around and glaring in his direction, her sharingan spinning into focus. Hashirama stifles a groan. He had never been particularly good at stealth missions, anyways.

“Oh,” he breathes, in lieu of a curse. He scolds himself for being careless and slowly folds his hands into a seal- just in case. As the aides start cautiously in his direction, Hashirama sees Madara straighten slightly, and they freeze. Hashirama furrows his brow.

“Madara,” the smaller aide, who Hashirama now recognizes as a younger woman named Naori, “There's somebody- er, there.”

Slowly, Madara raises a trembling, dismissive hand. Naori sees it in her peripheral vision and lowers her guard, and the second aide, Hikaku, quickly follows suit, visibly relaxing and lowering his hands from the utility belt cinched around his waist.

Madara glances over his shoulder, his eyes pink-red and teary. Hashirama's chest tightens a little. He knew that deep down, Madara trusted him- probably trusted him, anyways- but he was never exactly one to wear his heart on his sleeve. There's a small, frail looking body in the snow beneath him, dark, matted hair in wild curls spilling over his arms and his lap. 

“Is that you, Hashirama?” Madara asks, his voice strained. 

Naori watches Hashirama closely as he crosses into the clearing. 

He grimaces as Izuna’s body comes into focus beneath Madara. His lips are caked with blood at the corners, tinted blackish blue, and the wound halving his body is deep enough that it reveals the dull, reddish glimmer of his insides. Madara has one hand beneath the base of Izuna's skull, supporting his neck, his other hand braced against the side of his chest, glowing faintly. Hashirama bites the insides of his cheeks. Madara had never been particularly apt at using medical jutsu- not that it had ever really mattered, not before. Madara was strong, self-preserving, unrelenting; and when he couldn't be, Hashirama was usually around to pick up the pieces anyways. He passes Madara's aides and sinks to his knees beside them, his hand coming up hesitantly to rest between Madara’s shoulder blades. Immediately, he hears the hiss of a sword being drawn somewhere behind them. 

“Leave us be,” Madara says sharply, swollen eyes hard and narrow as he looks over his shoulder at his aides, “Busy yourself with Tajima’s ashes if you can find nothing better to do.” 

Hashirama watches grimly as Naori sheaths her sword again. The aides go, hugging their furs tighter around their shoulders as they return their attention to stoking the smoldering pyre in the snow. There's a flat, gray slate of armor in the pyre, reddish flames licking at the fabric wound around a half-burnt forearm, scarred knuckles- and the realization hits Hashirama like a freight train. 

He hadn’t spoken candidly or comfortably to Madara in years, but the severity of his expression, the tight, protective grip he had on Izuna's body, and the heat rising from his skin in coils told him all he needed to know. He was, after all, more intuitive than most people gave him credit for, and doubly so when it came to Madara.

“...May I?” Hashirama asks, his free hand hovering above Izuna’s forehead. Madara eyes him warily for a moment, his grip on Izuna tightening. Hashirama licks his lips. “Madara,” he says gently, “have some faith in me.”

Madara draws a shuddering breath. He closes his eyes slowly and breathes out hard, turning his face from Hashirama. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” he says quietly, “It won’t wake him up.”

“No,” Hashirama admits, “It won’t, but I- I might be able to.” Madara makes a sour expression. 

He hasn’t changed a bit, Hashirama thinks, fond and sad. He runs his hand across the breadth of Madara’s shoulders reassuringly, glances down at Izuna’s wide, empty eyes and bloodied body. 

Wordlessly, Madara shifts closer to Hashirama, manuerving so Izuna’s head rests comfortably in his lap. Hashirama gives Madara’s shoulder a last, reassuring squeeze, and shifts slightly, sitting back on his haunches and experimentally peeling back the edge of Izuna's robe. It comes unstuck from his body easily- but not easily enough. The fabric is saturated with blood. Madara, Hashirama notices, looks like he might throw up.

“He’s dead,” Madara says, stifling a pained sound with the back of his hand, “He might’ve still been alive when I got here, but he’s dead now.” 

“When did you get here?” Hashirama asks, trying for a conversational tone. He pulls Izuna’s robe open, splaying it open in the snow and bracing his hands against his open chest. He funnels a wave of chakra into the open wound, powerful enough that it startles Naori and Hikaku from where they awkwardly stoke the smoldering pyre of Tajima’s remains. 

“I-” Madara watches intently as the tissue around Izuna’s heart sputters once, his breath catching in his throat. “I don’t know, really. It hasn’t been long. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes.” He licks his lips. "I don't know. Maybe five." 

Hashirama makes a soft sound as he pushes another wave of chakra through Izuna’s chest, his brow furrowing in concentration. Izuna’s heart jumps once, his lungs stuttering back to life for an instant before they fall still again. 

Madara watches, bewildered, as Hashirama tries again, and again, and again to jumpstart the motor in Izuna’s chest. He’s aged gracefully, Madara thinks, rather inappropriately. His skin has taken on a deeper, bronzier quality than in his youth, his dark hair grown to his last rib and held loosely from his face with a short length of cloth. Even without his armor, his stature was imposing, though Madara knew he was fundamentally gentle and kind. He was beautiful- inside and out. Madara had no trouble admitting that. 

Beneath them, a patch of grass springs to life, freckled with clover and snowbells. With sweat beading on his brow, Hashirama pushes another coil of chakra through Izuna’s chest, grunting softly with the effort- and then suddenly, Izuna sucks in a harsh breath.

For an instant, Izuna’s eyes go wild with panic, his hand scrambling for purchase in the sleeve of Madara’s mantle. Hashirama presses his open palm against Izuna's forehead, narrowing his eyes in concentration. “He doesn't have any head trauma” he says sympathetically. Izuna makes a pained, strangled sound around the blood at the back of his mouth, straining against his damaged vocal chords. Hashirama touches his throat gently, which earns him a terrified half-yowl. “Madara," Hashirama says seriously, "Can you try to keep him comfortable? You don't have to hold him still, but I need both of you to stay calm for a few more minutes.” 

Madara doesn’t answer him. Instead, he leans forward and presses his lips against Izuna’s forehead, brings his hands up to cradle his face. It’s such a profoundly tender gesture that Hashirama has to avert his eyes. 

Hashirama divides his focus between repairing the damage done to Izuna’s internal organs, funneling excess chakra into the wound to keep him sedated and still. He knits the first portion of his throat shut, leaving a pink scar in the wake of his hands. Distantly, he becomes aware of Naori towering over him, awestruck and curious and visibly unsettled. 

A dry sob tears from Madara’s throat. 

“Izuna.” 

Hashirama blushes darkly, his hands faltering above Izuna’s clavicle. The wound heals crooked. 

When Hashirama finishes, there’s a circle of saplings bowing inward towards them, no doubt a byproduct of all the chakra he's put out healing Izuna. His chakra reserve is significantly exhausted, but Izuna is breathing, slow and steady and a bit rattling, but breathing nonetheless. Madara still seems a little shaken. He’s sprawled across Izuna’s upper body, their cheeks pressed flush together as he works his fingers through his soft, wild hair. He's murmuring something unintelligible to him, and Izuna is making soft, affirmative sounds every so often, apparently oblivious to anybody else's presence around them. 

Polite as ever, Hashirama shrugs off his haori and drapes it across Izuna’s bare body. He can feel Naori’s gaze on him, wary and gracious, and he realizes with a start that in all of the commotion, most of the Uchiha clan has huddled around them, sharing furs, watching horrified and placated as Madara comforts Izuna. 

“We have a settlement here,” Madara says suddenly, “Politically speaking, it might not be the best idea for you to stay here, but I feel-” he swallows thickly. Hashirama suppresses a shutter as he runs his eyes, his beautiful, bright red eyes, over his body. "I feel indebted to you. If you need to stay, you're more than welcome with me." 

Hashirama smiles earnestly. 

“Oh,” he laughs breathlessly, “No, that’s not necessary, though it is considerate.” He gets uneasily to his feet, bracing a hand on his thigh to keep from swaying. Madara flinches, his expression quickly turning skeptical. “Sit back down, then,” he suggests. Hashirama laughs gently again, and complies, sinking slowly back to the earth with his hands braced against his knees.

They enjoy a minute of comfortable, relieved silence, punctuated by Madara’s relieved sighs, Izuna's trembling, even breaths, and the occasional shuffle of Naori’s feet behind them as she shifts her weight from foot to foot. Once, Hashirama hears the funeral pyre crackle somewhere behidn them, and he grimaces. 

He watches Madara intently, his hands folded in his lap as he revels in the sight of him. His hair is wilder than ever, adorned with silver beads and twists of copper, his dark skin flushed from the cold and spattered with dark scars and sunspots, his eyes still bright and red as wine. He’s practically the spitting image of Izuna, though his brother’s cheeks are supple where his are fallow- it wouldn't take a genius to guess that Madara had been making a point to slip his winter rations to his brother and the younger members of their clan. 

Despite everything, he still looks so much like the child he was. Hashirama wishes, rather desperately, that he could pull Madara close, hold him against his chest, be the peace he so deserves. 

“I really should be getting back to Tobirama,” Hashirama says softly, “He’ll worry.” 

“If you were close enough to sense me, I'm sure Tobirama knows exactly where you are,” Madara says, a touch bitter, "No doubt, he knows how exhausted you are too. He's probably out for blood with the rest of your clan as we speak, storming through the forests like-"

Naori straightens up behind them. Hikaku, who had been sitting on his haunches, all but leaps to his feet. Hashirama grimaces. Right, he thinks, he had never been very good at considering the consequences of his actions as he made them. 

“Madara," Naori says, "You're sharp as ever." She looks bitterly at Hashirama, her hand drifting to the hilt of her sword. Hashirama swallows thickly, casting his gaze aside. Madara doesn’t move a muscle. He looks like he's deep in thought- his fingers massaging Izuna's scalp, gnawing at the insides of his cheeks.

“Right,” he mutters. He clears his throat, curling his arms around Izuna's shoulders protectively. “Hashirama,” he clears his throat, though it does nothing to hide the mounting urgency in his voice, “I'm sure there's some way for me to repay my debt to you- you know, long term.”

Hashirama frowns. Before he can offer Madara an answer, he hears the rustle of brush at the clearing's edge, Tobirama stumbling through the snow, his cheeks flushed, struggling for breath.

“Anija!” 

The younger Senju’s voice cracks, and it makes him sound impossibly young. Hashirama gets unsteadily to his feet again, opening his arms for Tobirama as he comes charging through the snow at him. 

Tobirama throws himself at his eldest brother, hides his face against the front of his tunic and holds fast to his waist. His breath comes in short, panicked bursts, and Hashirama braces his hands firmly against his shoulders. 

Naori and Hikaku fly to Madara's sides, Naori’s arm thrown protectively across his back as Hikaku shields Izuna with his side. Behind Tobirama, Hashirama can see a tiny mob of his clansmen with their hands lifted in seals, thumbing the flaps of their weapons pouches, poised like snakes to strike. He swallows dryly. 

“Are you hurt?” Tobirama asks, stepping back to compose himself. Hashirama shakes his head, and hopes his discomfort isn't too obvious. 

Tobirama frowns. 

Beneath the crook of Hashirama’s arm, he sees Madara doubled over in the snow across a bloodied body swaddled in a Senju haori. 

Hesitantly, he presses closer to Hashirama, craning his neck to get a better look at the small body beneath Madara. Naori grips the hilt of her sword, though she can see nothing in Tobirama’s expression but curiosity and guarded compassion. Hashirama and Madara are not their fathers, she thinks hopefully, and neither are their brothers. 

When he recognizes Izuna in the small patch of grass, draped in his brother’s haori, he blanches.

“Oh,” he breathes, covering his mouth with the back of his hand and turning away. Hashirama drapes an arm across his shoulders. Tobirama was strong- at least, he'd mostly been desensitized to violence and gore on account of, well, everything- but he was still only a teenager, still easy to upset, still quick to judge, quick to panic. “He’s alright,” Hashirama promises, “I’m alright. I may have overexerted myself a bit, but I’m alright.” 

Tobirama nods fervently, trying to blink the image of Izuna’s bloodied body from his memory. They’d fought each other countless times, even spoken amicably off the battlefield a few times, Izuna leaving Tobirama invariably stunned by his grace and kindness. To see him so vulnerable- to see Madara so vulnerable- was… unsettling, to say the least. 

“Anija,” Tobirama murmurs, “what should we-?” 

Hashirama blinks, stupefied. His clansmen are watching him expectantly, apparently more unsettled by his change in disposition than by the group of Uchiha behind him. 

With Tajima gone, diplomacy fell to Madara. 

Madara- reasonable and fair and idealistic, beautiful and kind like nobody Hashirama had ever met, would ever meet again. Madara- still the boy he had no troubling admitting he'd loved, still the boy whose insights he'd cherished dearly, still the boy who inspired him when nothing else could.  
Hashirama is caught in his reverie when he hears the snow shift behind him, and when he turns around startled, he sees Madara on his hands and knees, his forehead resting against the snow.

“Madara,” Hashirama breathes, dropping to his knees, “Raise your head. Madara, please.”  
Stubbornly, Madara keeps his head bowed. Hashirama blushes deeply, resting his hands lightly on his shoulders, trying to force him into a sitting position. “Madara-”

“I'm not letting you leave without repaying you," he says harshly, moving slowly back to a kneeling position, "I changed my mind. I want you to take whatever you want from me- if that's my life, my inheritance, so be it. Take anything." 

There's a calling back, for a moment, to the afternoons they'd spend together as children, overlooking the countryside from a cliff face with their shoulders pressed together, their hands resting atop each other's. There's a moment where Madara is still young and starry eyed, still immovable and strong, still himself, still different all the same. Hashirama thinks, quite fondly, that nothing has really changed at all.

There’s something else there, too, like a busted dam letting Madara’s desperation pour forth like white rapids. Madara had never been particularly good at, say, bearing the depths of his soul to Hashirama, but he wasn’t apt to hide his true feelings either. Seeing Madara grovel makes Hashirama feel a little nauseous, a little bit like he's exploiting him somehow. 

Hashirama sinks to the earth beside him. He rests his hands on Madara’s shoulders, amazed at how sturdy they feel despite bearing the weight of the world on them for so long. He supposes that maybe it's made him stronger- but that doesn't make it fair.

“Let’s build our village, then,” Hashirama murmurs. He smooths his hands along Madara’s shoulders, reveling in the rise and fall of his chest, in the way his eyes fall to watch his lips as he speaks. “Let’s build it however you’d like.”


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things will start 2 pick up soon dont worry :)

“Tajima never made a secret of how he treated them," Naori says bitterly. Beside her, Hikaku hums in agreement. 

They sit quietly in the early hours of the morning outside the small home Madara and Izuna shared with Tajima, nursing cups of over-steeped tea and shivering in their furs.  
Truthfully, both of them had always felt a sort of paternal instinct towards Madara and Izuna. Officially, they were Madara's aides, appointed by the small council of elders and advisers that had worked under Tajima, but Naori especially considered herself something of a mother figure, something of a big sister to him and Izuna. True, she had Kagami to look after- she certainly didn't need the added burden of looking after Madara and Izuna- but Hikaku made it easier. Hikaku looked after her when nobody else did. Hashirama had gone inside with Madara and Izuna. Madara was adamant about getting Izuna into bed as soon as possible.

Hikaku shudders, though it’s only partially because of the bitter cold. “I think we should have killed him ourselves, years ago,” he murmurs, "It's probably best for Madara to have...closure, but still." 

“Especially after what he did to Akira,” Naori adds with a grimace. She braces her hand on the bottom of her teacup and tilts it to her lips, relishing in the warmth. “Do you remember, Hikaku?” 

Hikaku nods grimly. He sets his jaw and smooths the edges of his hair, slicking them back against his temples. “Of course I remember. I’d really prefer if we didn’t dwell on the subject.”

“Right,” Naori says apologetically, “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he sighs, “I’m just grateful that Madara and Izuna are still together.”

Naori hums in agreement and returns her attention to the steaming mug in her hands. 

Madara tended to get a little cagey around Hashirama. He had always had a sort of flair for the dramatic, but Hashirama had a unique talent for bringing out the worst in Madara, the most desperate, the most vulnerable. 

Vulnerability wasn't exactly a luxury Madara had ever been able to afford.

Naori could give less of a shit about the ceasefire- the armistice, the treaty, whatever the fuck it was. The Uchiha had thoroughly exhausted their resources; their reserves of food and medicine had dwindled down to practically nothing through the past three winters. The Senju were naturally gifted healers- there was no real precedent for medicine in the Uchiha tradition. It was probably for the best. In the end, it would be the elders who opposed the whatever-the-fuck-it-was. It wasn't Naori's problem, nor was it Kagami's or Hikaku's or Izuna's. Whatever-the-fuck-it-was was between Madara and Hashirama and their stubborn, book-bred elders.

“That Hashirama loves a challenge, doesn't he?" Naori scoffs. 

Hikaku rolls his eyes. "He certainly does."

Madara shoves the rest of Tajima's possessions against the edge of the master bedroom in unneat piles. 

Hashirama kneels at Izuna's side, holding his dark hair out of his eyes, his fingers splayed across his forehead. The injury itself is more or less healed- with a few more hours of work, over time, Hashirama could probably fade the scar entirely- but there's still a risk for infection or complication with such a serious injury.

Hashirama isn't sure what to make of it- that Madara has effectively left him alone with Izuna while he tries to figure out what's to be done with the rest of Tajima's linens and clothes and his piles of old reports and records. It's a gesture of trust, sure; Madara was good at those. When they were younger, he let Hashirama heal his black eyes, his bruised wrists, his bruised ribs. He let Hashirama sleep against his back, let Hashirama touch his hair and his hands and his eyes- his _eyes_.

Hashirama was tactless- over-affectionate and non-discerning. Madara was guarded, skeptical, uneasy. He only made exceptions for Izuna- and for Hashirama. Madara had that strange, poetic sort of way about him, and it made Hashirama feel a little like a bull in a china shop sometimes. If Hashirama was a forest fire, Madara was a controlled burn- Madara was careful, calculating, unbelievably kind. 

That kindness is evident in everything Madara does. He over-fluffs Izuna's pillow, tucks the corners of his furs so tightly around his shoulder that Hashirama can practically see the dips in his collarbones. 

Hashirama smiles gently. He clears his throat.

“How old are you two now?” he asks, trying for nonchalance. Madara gives him a sidewise glance, smoldering, but not unkind. “I’m twenty, same as you, and Izuna will be seventeen soon.”

“Ah,” Hashirama smiles awkwardly, “I must have missed your birthday. You have a winter birthday, don’t you?”

Madara rolls his eyes. “I do. I can't believe you've forgotten- that's not really like you, is it?” 

“Happy belated birthday, then,” Hashirama says quietly.

“Thank you,” Madara says. His tone is implacable, but there’s the ghost of a smile on his lips, that unmistakable softness in his eyes. "For everything, I mean."

“No, no," Hashirama says dismissively, "Please. I have to atone from my trespasses somehow, you know?" 

Madara scoffs. “'Trespasses'. Your vocabulary's certainly improved." 

Hashirama barks out a laugh, and Madara bites his lip to stifle a smile. He studies Hashirama's face- his honey-brown eyes, the little shadow above his cupid's bow, the tiny silver scar on his nostril. 

Madara liked sparring with Hashirama. He always had- fighting with him, actually fighting with him was a different story. But he'd left the scar on Hashirama's nostril a few summers ago. He hadn't meant to, hadn't meant to hurt him, but Hashirama had been so fatigued that day, his hair falling in his eyes, his fingers trembling, his shoulders tight. It was a blow he should have been able to evade- Madara thinks that maybe he had chosen not to. 

That was what Madara liked about the scar. It was small- Hashirama could have chosen to heal it, if he wanted to, but he'd left it.

Madara touches Izuna's hair gently. 

“Did I ever apologize?" 

Hashirama frowns. “Apologize for what?”

Slowly, silently, Madara brings his free hand up to Hashirama’s face. He touches the side of Hashirama's nose very gently, sliding his thumb over the tiny silver line of scar tissue in a slow, lingering curve. 

“You really are kindhearted, Madara." 

Madara sucks his teeth. "Oh, please."

Hashirama barks out a laugh- eliciting a tiny, unhappy groan from Izuna. Hashirama covers his mouth. Madara gives him a look of admonishment. “You’re still terribly loud,” Madara snaps, pressing his hand against Izuna’s forehead, "Though I prefer it to silence."

“You’re still declaratory,” Hashirama teases, “It’s entertaining, though I hope you aren’t as miserable as you sound.”

Madara pouts sourly, though his eyes are kind.

Hashirama was his favorite distraction- he always had been, and likely always would be. There's still a feeling of nonreality about him, that feeling of too-good-to-be-true or too-good-to-last that makes Madara feel just the slightest bit panicky, like one misstep and Hashirama slips through his fingers like sand. 

But, then again, Madara had always felt the same way about Izuna- like if he didn't hold on tight enough he would just cease to be, and now there's the three of them, together, alive and warm and... Madara isn't really sure. Safe, maybe.

“You know, we don’t have...er-to do this," Hashirama says, "Maybe I'm being too idealistic about the village. About everything." He watches Madara carefully, his expression uncharacteristically guarded. Madara frowns. "It wouldn't be the first time," he teases. Hashirama's expression softens a little. 

"Do you still- do you still want to?" Madara asks.

A soft sound escapes Hashirama’s throat, gentler than his normal, braying laughter. Madara blinks at him. 

“Of course it is,” Hashirama promises, “So long as it's- you know. So long as it's with you."

The wind howls a little, and Izuna draws a shuddering breath. Madara offers Hashirama his first two fingers. Smiling, Hashirama threads his fingers through Madara’s, squeezing his hand gently- a little protectively. 

There’s a certain electricity to it. There always is.

“Same dream," Madara affirms, "Same as always."

“I thought about approaching your father about the village, after Butsuma died,” Hashirama admits sheepishly, “Though I doubted it would have gone well.” He clears his throat, offering Madara an awkward, apologetic smile as he withdraws his touch. Madara grimaces. He bites his tongue.

“That was probably...smart."

Before Hashirama can apologize, Izuna makes a sharp, pained sound- almost a yelp. 

Izuna’s features pinch and unpinch several times before he blinks his eyes open. They’re cloudy and searching, his sharingan whirling lazily in and out of focus for a few seconds. Madara exhales harshly. He slips one hand beneath Izuna's shoulders, pressing down firmly on his chest with the other to try and keep him still. Izuna looks up at him, his eyebrows drawn up in a quizzical, panicked expression.

“Aniki?” 

“Yeah," Madara's voice comes out a little strained, "Yeah, Izuna, I'm right here."

Izuna frowns. Madara keeps his arm braced across his chest to keep him from sitting up, pressing him against the bedroll when he jerks suddenly away from Hashirama. “Aniki-” his voice wavers a bit, audibly distraught. 

“Hush,” Madara says sternly.

“Is that-”

“I said hush,” Madara says, "It's Hashirama. It's alright."

“I'm glad you're alright," Hashirama says honestly, "Really."

Izuna ignores him and instead gives Madara a pleading look, his trembling hand looking for purchase in his mantle. “Aniki-” He makes a strangled sound, loosing a whine from his throat. Madara draws him against his chest, resting his chin on the crown of his head. “I know,” he murmurs, “It's alright.” 

“But isn’t Hashirama-”

“It's alright” Madara interrupts, "It's alright. I promise, it's alright."

In color and shape, Izuna’s eyes are nearly identical to Madara’s- sharp, dark, kohl-smudged- but they're narrower. More skeptical. Unkind, almost. Afraid. Hashirama's chest feels a little tight. They remind him of Tobirama. 

“You don't owe me anything, Izuna," Hashirama says gently, "I don't want for either of you to feel indebted to me." 

When Madara looks to Izuna again, his cheeks are flushed, and he looks deeply uncomfortable- but the fear is gone from him. He looks a little bit like Hashirama; uncertain and grateful all at once, unbearably beautiful. “You don’t have to make pretenses,” Izuna says sheepishly, “It’s- it’s fine.” 

“I mean it with the utmost sincerity,” Hashirama insists, "You may find this hard to believe, but I care deeply about-" he swallows nervously, "I care very deeply about both of you. You don't owe me anything." 

Satiated, Izuna presses himself against Madara’s chest, tucking his cheek against his throat. Madara makes a quiet, contented sound and squeezes his shoulders. “Alright,” Izuna mutters, “You know- whatever. I’m too tired and too confused to argue with either of you.” 

Hashirama gets to his feet carefully. He's still a little shaky from the overexertion, but it's nothing a few hours of sleep won't fix. He rests his hand on Madara’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze, allowing himself to linger just a moment too long. Briefly, perhaps subconsciously, Madara’s hand reaches up to cover his.

He looks peaceful. Izuna's head is tucked under his chin, and his breath comes in soft, even intervals. Hashirama wonders, for just a second, if he should offer to stay. Madara, more than anyone, deserves to have somebody look after him- but Naori and Hikaku are outside. Izuna is here, and God willing, there will be ample opportunity for Hashirama to spend time with him in the very near future.

Besides- he's already halfway out the door.

“Goodnight, Hashirama,” Madara says, smiling tiredly over his shoulder, "I'll see you in the morning." 


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is going to be a lot longer than i anticipated :P expect me to edit this compulsively for a few hours as im not quite used to ao3's formatting system

Tobirama was less than thrilled about a treaty- an arimistace- a whatever-the-fuck-it-was with the Uchiha. They were volatile, uncompromising, something Butsuma made sure to drill into his head as a child, and Uchiha Tajima had been especially merciless. The rumor went something like Tajima killed three of his five sons- one of them for insolence, two of them, years apart, in a failed attempt to awaken Madara's _mangekyo_. 

Madara had always, always been reputed as the strongest of Tajima's sons. Tobirama supposed that was part of what Hashirama found so... _intoxicating _about him. He was the portrait of volatility, calculating and unkind and wildly unpredictable. 

From the outside looking in, Tobirama supposed he was, as well. 

At the end of the day, he felt no small amount of sympathy for Madara. They were all monsters in their own right. 

And then there was Izuna. Izuna was playful, apologetic, comparatively uncertain. Tobirama always thought that fighting with him felt a little bit like dancing, a little bit choreographed. 

Izuna and Madara both had that devoted nature about them- whether it was towards each other, towards their clan, towards the world, Tobirama couldn't feel sure. Hashirama, on the other hand... 

Hashirama adored Madara. He never made a secret of it. Tobirama just tried not to think about it.

It's early in the morning when Hashirama gets back to the compound. Tobirama is sitting in the front room, wrapped tightly in his blankets, one leg stretched over the threshold, the other bent behind his hips. Hashirama looks a little dejected- more thoughtful than usual, and thoroughly exhausted. 

“Anija.”

Tobirama hates the way admonishment sounds on his tongue. 

Hashirama offers him a gentle smile. “Sorry, Tobirama. I got a little turned around on my way home.”

"I don't want to know," Tobirama sighs. Hashirama steps up onto the porch and steps out of his boots, leaning over Tobirama to set them inside. There's a tiny spattering of paper lanterns glowing like points of starlight around the compound. It's peaceful- Tobirama wants so much to hold onto that feeling.

“Picturesque," Hashirama comments. 

“It's alright," Tobirama says dully, "It's... not the sort of thing that lasts for very long."

"You're so _negative,_" Hashirama huffs. He pushes the sliding door open and drops down beside Tobirama, resting his head on his little brother's shoulder. Tobirama stiffens- then reaches up and strokes Hashirama's hair once. "...Is this about the whole... village thing?"

“'The village thing'," Tobirama parrots, "That's a little reductive, isn't it?" 

"I'm not stupid, you know," Hashirama pouts, "I've thought about this a _lot_." 

"I'm sure, anija," Tobirama says apologetically. He drapes his arm across Hashirama's shoulders and pulls him closer, earning a tiny, affectionate laugh from his brother in response. "It's not you I'm worried about." 

Hashirama hums. "It's the elders, right?" 

"It's just that this is- I don't know. Unprecedented. I'm not sure how they'll take it."

Hashirama shrugs. "They'll oppose me, probably. I expect the Uchiha elders will oppose Madara too. That doesn't really mean anything, though." 

“Makes you wonder why we have a council of elders in the first place."

Hashirama laughs at that, bright and airy like something has loosened in his chest.  
Tobirama rolls his eyes. He takes his arm from around Hashirama's shoulders and hugs his blankets tighter around his shoulders, leaning over and resting his head against his brother's shoulder. He looks over the mountains, takes a mental picture of the sun coming up over the snowcaps. 

“I love you, Tobirama,” Hashirama says suddenly, “You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he says softly, “I know, anija.”

He stiffens as Hashirama’s arms come suddenly around him. He smells like _Madara_\- like stale sage and copper and sandalwood. It's a little nauseating, really, but Tobirama likes it when Hashirama holds him. He'd be damned to admit it, of course, but Hashirama's presence is deeply, deeply comforting, even if it feels a little bit like he's being smothered sometimes.

“You should sleep," Tobirama says gently, "Just for a little bit. I don't want you getting sick from being out in the cold all night." 

"I don't get _sick_," Hashirama says dismissively, sitting back on his hands. 

"You do when you exhaust your chakra like this," Tobirama snaps, "Speaking of, I can't _believe _you-"

"Don't start," Hashirama groans, "I'll go! I promise!" 

"You _better_," Tobirama says menacingly. 

"If you were so worried," Hashirama starts, getting unsteadily to his feet, "...maybe you shouldn't have left me alone with-" 

Tobirama springs to his feet and tackles Hashirama to the floor, leaving a trail of blankets in his wake. Hashirama kicks at him halfheartedly, manages to land a playful swat on Tobirama's shoulder. 

They're well past the age of roughhousing like this- Tobirama knows that. But Hashirama has a unique way of inciting his temper, of making him act more like a child and less like a soldier. Sometimes that isn't the worst feeling in the world. 

Hikaku and Naori are waiting at the edge of the compound to great them- Hashirama had begged Tobirama to come with him, more as a gesture of goodwill than anything. Tobirama didn't think he could possibly say no to his brother at this point. 

Again, the whole situation was... _unprecedented_. Tobirama wasn't sure what to expect- an ambush, maybe. An ambush, he could deal with. Hospitality was a different story entirely.

But Hashirama seemed _excited_, almost. Tobirama wasn't sure he wanted to know why. 

The Uchiha compound was nice enough- their homes were made from clay and mortar where the Senju preferred wood; it was easier to travel that way, but the Uchiha tended to just move between old ruins when the occasion called for it. In the end, that may have been far more practical than exploiting Hashirama's _mokuton_ for the infrastructure of their compounds, not that Hashirama seemed to mind much. 

Naori speaks first. She clears her throat awkwardly, tucks an errant lock of violet hair behind her ear. She seems nervous, almost- uncertain. 

"Did-" she swallows, "Did you sleep well?"

Hashirama smiles broadly. "Well enough," he says gently, "Are the two of you alright?"

Hikaku nods. "Naori has Kagami at home," he explains, "she's a bit distracted." 

"I am _not_," Naori huffs.

Hikaku smiles politely. Tobirama suppresses a shudder. Hikaku has a regal air about him- same as Madara.

"Madara's been awake for a while," Hikaku continues, "Er- Hashirama, he's expecting you, but I don't think he anticipated you bringing anybody else along this morning."

Tobirama frowns. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"_Tobirama_," Hashirama scolds, "Advise yourself." 

Hikaku _laughs _at that- actually _laughs _at that. He waves a hand dismissively and turns on his heel, smiling over his shoulder. "Please," he says apologetically, "He just wants to let Izuna rest, more than anything. It won't be a problem at all." 

Tobirama falls into step just behind Hashirama.

There's a handful of Uchiha milling about the compound already, speaking to each other in cautious tones over clay mugs of tea. They look a bit like a murder of crows, huddled together on their porches like this, Tobirama thinks. It's downright frightening.

He quickens his pace a bit. Hashirama rests a gentle, reassuring hand over Tobirama's armored shoulder, squeezing gently. 

"Don't be inconsiderate," Hashirama murmurs.

Tobirama nods slightly. He straightens his back a little- drops his eyes.

There's a tiny house at the edge of the compound, the entrance framed on all sides by high niches and intricate little mosaics. The windows are obscured by heavy curtains of tanned hides, the paper lanterns hanging on either side of the entrance dull and unlit, almost as if nobody lives there at all. There's shoddy protection seals above the threshold of the entrance- Hikaku undoes them easily.

Hikaku crosses the threshold first, then Hashirama, then Tobirama, and then finally Naori. The interior of the home is sparsely decorated and dimly lit, the front room littered with paperwork in Tajima's neat handwriting and empty metal inkwells. There are brown bloodstains on the floor- Tobirama suppresses another shudder. 

He doesn't want to think about where or how or why Tajima mutilated Izuna like he did. If the way he blanches is any indication, Hashirama doesn't either.

“I put water on for tea earlier,” Hikaku says softly, "I'm sure it's still warm, so please, help yourselves. You can retrieve Madara whenever you'd like, but I think you should let Izuna rest for a while longer."

“Of course," Hashirama says sympathetically, "Thank you for your hospitality." 

Hashirama immediately launches into small talk with the Uchiha- he'd always had a particular talent for that sort of thing. He was charming, attentive; Tobirama was decidedly not.

Instead, Tobirama wanders down the hallway in the direction of the master bedroom. He can hear Madara- he thinks it's Madara, anyways- snoring lightly. His chakra has a distinct warmth to it; cloying, suffocating. Izuna's, by comparison, is almost opalescent; feather-light and a little bit delicate.

Tobirama rests his hand over the edge of the door. There's that same curtain of tanned hide as over the windows behind a curtain of wooden beads, painted over with seals. It probably wouldn't be smart to let himself in.

It probably wouldn't be smart to approach Izuna at all. Tobirama likes to think that maybe, under different circumstances, maybe they would have become friends- Izuna was pleasant enough, but he was probably still a little shaken from last night. It wouldn't do either of them any good to startle him.

“Wait-”

Tobirama flinches as he hears footfalls from inside the bedroom, soft and uneven. “Wait a second,” Izuna calls, "Sorry- the seal. Seals. Hang on."

Izuna's breathing is still a bit labored. Tobirama waits another second until he hears the seal behind the door hiss, and experimentally lifts the flap of the curtain.

There's an oil lamp burning in the bedroom- Madara is sprawled out on the floor beneath an array of cotton sheets and furs, his outstretched hand resting against the bare length of futon where Izuna had just been lying. He's exhausted, clearly- it's probably best for everyone if he gets some sleep. 

And then there's Izuna, and he's so much prettier up close. He looks at Tobirama skeptically.

“Hi,” Izuna offers.

“Hey,” Tobirama clears his throat, “It’s- er. I'm glad you're alright.”

“Hn,” comes the noncommittal reply. Izuna crosses his arms. He smiles, not quite kind and not quite cruel. Tobirama shifts uncomfortably. His armor rattles. Madara groans and sits up on his elbow. 

“Izuna,” he calls, his throat hoarse from sleep, “Zuzu, are you alright?”

Izuna blushes, clearly affected by the nickname. He presses the backs of his hands against his cheeks. “I’m fine, aniki. A little dizzy, a little sore, but I’m fine. Ah- the Senju are here.”

Tobirama startles when Madara sits bolt upright, his _mangekyo_ burning in his eyes and his hand lifted in a seal before recognition hits him like a ton of bricks. The _mangekyo _whirls out of focus, giving way to his dark, uncomprehending eyes. Tobirama can't help but to feel a little sorry for him- there's dark, brownish bruises beneath his eyes from lack of sleep, his skin chafed, probably from crying. He's deciedly hard to look at.

“Ah-” he clears his throat, “I was expecting Hashirama.”

“He’s just outside,” Tobirama assures him, “He’s with- er- Hikaku and Naori. They’ve put tea on.”

Madara nods curtly. He eases himself into a sitting position, grimacing with the effort. He leans forward and rests his forearms on his knees, hanging his head for a moment.

“Go ahead, Izuna, I’ll be out in a minute.”

Izuna brushes past him and disappears down the hallway.

The Uchiha were a volatile clan. They were prone to mood swings, mercilessness, hatred- but at the end of the day, so were the Senju. 

Tobirama turns around to see Naori's arms wrapped tightly around Izuna's waist, her face buried in his chest. It's a profoundly tender gesture- Hikaku crosses the room and stands behind Izuna, resting his chin on the crown of his head and squeezing his shoulder. 

When Hashirama brushes past him on his way to Madara's bedroom, he touches Tobirama's shoulder lightly. 

Tobirama isn't quite sure they're so different at all. 


	5. V

The tea Hashirama prepares is more fragrant than Madara likes. He empties all of Madara's tinned herbs into a strainer and badly oversteeps them. Madara drinks it with a practiced, gracious smile on his lips while Hashirama hums obliviously- secretly, he likes the sourness of it, just a little. Tobirama and Izuna exchange private, despairing glasses over the rims of their mugs. 

Naori and Hikaku and left before the water finished boiling, leaving the four of them in the stiff, uncomfortable silence of the early morning. 

Madara’s focus is singularly on Hashirama as they nurse their tea in the sparse clutter of his kitchen, on his neat fingernails and impossibly straight hair. It’s grown out quite beautifully from the short bob he sported as a young teenager, cascading down the strong slope of his back.

He remembers, fondly, sleeping pressed together in the summer- with his nose tucked between Hashirama’s shoulder blades, his arms wound around his once-slim waist. It was their favorite way to unwind after spars, though, admittedly, the closeness had taken some getting used to. 

Hashirama had initiated it the first time, Madara recalls with a smile. Madara had been bent forwards with his hands braced on his knees, gasping for breath. He had been _exhausted, _beyond exhausted, and Hashirama had eased him to the ground and pulled Madara's head against his chest, awkwardly stroking his hair. Madara had bristled, at first. And then Hashirama had commanded him, gently, to _breathe with him_, and Madara fell asleep in minutes. 

Madara was starved for touch. Tajima made it a point to keep him and Izuna separate- depending on the compound, that could mean separate bedrooms or sleeping on opposite sides of the same bedroll, sometimes with Tajima wedged between them. It was a matter of practicality, he explained- he didn't want either of them getting too attached to the other.

It’s all he’s ever wanted, really- to feel _held_. 

“Are you alright, Madara?" 

Madara raises his head slightly. Hashirama is looking at him with a quizzical expression, his head cocked ever-so-slightly to the side. 

“I'm-" he swallows thickly, "I- I'm sorry, what?" 

He can practically hear Izuna roll his eyes. 

Hashirama smiles gently, "I asked if you were alright, Madara." 

Madara thinks he could get himself drunk just listening to Hashirama say his name like that-"_ma-da-ra_". 

"Aniki," Izuna says suddenly, "Were you up _all _night?" 

Madara sets his jaw. He forgot just how _snitty _Izuna could get sometimes. 

Hashirama frowns. "Madara?" 

Madara folds his arms and leans back slightly, heaving a long-suffering sigh. "In my defense, I thought Izuna was going to _die_." 

"I healed him!" Hashirama says indignantly, "He was awake! And _talking _to you!" 

"Yeah," Izuna huffs, crossing his arms, "I was _awake_, and talking to you."

Madara massages his temples. He can already feel a migraine coming on. "Actually, I've changed my mind about the village. If the two of you are going to team up and _antagonize _me like this, then-"

Hashirama reaches out and touches his hands gently. Madara makes a strangled sound- Hashirama's hands are so _warm._

“Izuna,” Hashirama says gently, "Is there someplace you and Tobirama could keep yourselves entertained if Madara and I work out of the front room?"

Izuna gives Hashirama a skeptical look. He licks his lips. “There's a... I don't know. Aniki-”

"Tajima's study," Madara provides, "Functions like a library. Out of all of the Uchiha compounds, it's probably the smallest, but it's comfortable enough."

Izuna nods and gets carefully to his feet. Tobirama, who had remained resolutely silent throughout the whole ordeal, lunges forward and catches Izuna's shoulder. Madara flinches.

Izuna tenses up for a second- and then, remarkably, he relaxes. 

"Sorry," Tobirama says quickly. 

Izuna swallows. "That's okay," he says gently, "I'm sort of- er- jumpy." 

"Please," Tobirama scoffs, "That- that more than makes sense, given the circumstances." 

Before the two of them can pass behind Madara and disappear into the library, Madara jerks his hand out of Hashirama's grip and seizes Izuna's shoulder.

"Taeal 'iilaa huna," Madara says softly- _come here_. 

Izuna's eyes go wide- and then his expression softens. He puts his arms gently around Madara's shoulders. Madara exhales shakily. He turns his head to the side slightly and presses a kiss against Izuna's cheek, pulling his other hand from Hashirama's and resting it against the back of Izuna's neck. 

"Laqad 'akhafatani." _Don't scare me again_.

Izuna holds him tightly. Madara kisses him again, and shuts his eyes. 

"Asif," Izuna murmurs- _I'm sorry_. He strokes Madara's hair lightly. "I'll try not to." 

Madara nods. He breathes in deeply. "Aeshaqk bajnun, Izuna" he murmurs finally.

_I adore you, Izuna._

Izuna laughs a little, and withdraws. "Iyah," he says affectionately, "I know you do. Now don't embarrass us."

“Let me see you,” Hashirama says softly. 

Madara blinks at him. 

"What?" 

"Come here," Hashirama says again.

It's mid-morning, and they're sitting in the front room. It's bright out- sunshine bouncing off the snow in flat, white and orange planes of light. Madara's eyes hurt. 

He'd been rubbing at them all morning- partly from exhaustion, partly from the ache the _mangekyo _left behind whenever he used it. 

Hashirama is opening and closing his fingers- pouting up at him.

"Put your chin here," he says gently, "Just let me see your eyes."

Madara laughs dryly. "You're asking to see my _eyes_." 

"They're bothering you," Hashirama pouts, "Come _here_, Madara."

Madara sighs. He tilts his head back slightly, exposing his throat. 

Deep down, he knows Hashirama would never hurt him- but that doesn't necessarily make it any easier. 

In some ways, it's easier to be vulnerable with Izuna than with Hashirama. Izuna is... distant in a way Hashirama could never be. Objective. Sympathetic. Hashirama likes to dive headfirst into feeling, and Madara finds it a little frightening.

So he closes his eyes. 

"It's okay," Hashirama murmurs.

"That doesn't mean it's _easy_." 

Hashirama touches his chin gently, and Madara suppresses a shudder. 

"Do I feel different?" Hashirama asks curiously. He tilts Madara's head to the side slightly. Madara swallows. 

"Hashirama-" 

"Do I?"

Madara grits his teeth. "_Hashirama-"_

"Because you're still-"

In one smooth movement, Madara jerks backwards and jumps to his feet, his hands flying up to cover his throat. He exhales sharply, and shudders. 

He tries not to look at Hashirama. He doesn't think he can anticipate how badly that would hurt him. He doesn't think he can bear to see the flicker of hurt in his pretty brown eyes. 

"I'm sorry," he says simply, "You're just- you're so _much_, sometimes, Hashirama, I don't-"

"Okay." 

Madara screws his eyes shut. 

"I'm sorry," he repeats, "It's not that I don't want you to-" 

"I know," Hashirama murmurs, "I understand."

A beat of silence passes. Madara opens his eyes slowly. 

Hashirama is still sitting where he'd been, his hand outstretched slightly- and there's not a trace of hurt in his expression. He looks... _unbelievably _calm. Madara swallows, and Hashirama licks his lips, looks him over once. 

"I'll be good," Hashirama says. Madara can't help the shudder that runs up his spine. "I'll be good now," he repeats, "I'll be careful." 

Madara looks at him wearily. 

"I'll be good," Hashirama says, a little desperately.

Madara nods, once, and sits down again. Hashirama breathes a sigh of relief- he shifts backwards and turns to face the drafting table again, reaching back to tuck a lock of shining brown hair behind his ear. His cheeks are flushed- Madara counts fifteen freckles on his right cheek. 

Hashirama looks more embarrassed, than anything- in some ways, Madara thinks that's worse. 

"You're allowed to touch me," Madara says after a few seconds. Hashirama looks up at him, his eyes wide. "Just- ease me into it again." 

Hashirama's face lights up at that. 

His smile is _dazzling_. 

"Okay," he says, "Okay, Madara. I will." 

“You’ve matured a lot,” Hashirama comments.

Madara raises his eyebrows. He blows smoke out of his nose. "Is it the pipe?" 

It's late in the afternoon now- the light isn't so bad. The tobacco certainly helps.

"No..." Hashirama says thoughtfully, "I don't know. It's your eyes, maybe." 

"Don't touch them," Madara says dully, taking another drag off his pipe, "I mean it, Hashirama." 

"What about me?" 

Hashirama rolls onto his stomach and props his chin up on his hand. It makes him look impossibly young- the sunlight casts pretty golden highlights in his hair, on the apples of his cheeks. There's a smudge of black ink on his chin- Madara suppresses a snort.

"What?"

He taps his chin. "You have a little..." 

Hashirama blinks at him. "Oh!" He licks his thumb and wipes at the ink, crinkling his nose with the effort. 

Madara bites his lip to keep from smiling. "You're the same," he says, "Prettier. You look better with your hair grown out." 

Hashirama smiles sweetly. Madara's chest feels tight.

“You think I’m pretty, Madara?”

“That’s not what I said.”

Hashirama’s smile widens as he watches Madara turn his head to the side, failing miserably at hiding the dark blush blossoming across his nose, across his cheeks.

“Anija, we’re going out.” 

Madara flinches. Izuna giggles.

Tobirama and Izuna come stumbling down the hallway, Izuna's arms wrapped around Tobirama's bicep. Izuna is wearing a tunic he’d hemmed to expose the plane of his stomach and the top third of his hips, though his dark skin is swaddled in tight bandages- which, essentially, Madara thinks, defeats the whole purpose of wearing a cropped tunic. 

“Aniki, I’m taking Tobirama to go meet Kagami, okay?”

Madara blinks at him. “And if I say no?”

Izuna’s expression softens. “I'm okay," he says, "Hashirama even said so."

Madara sets his pipe aside and drags a hand down his face. Hashirama smiles at him, a little guiltily. 

“That's not really what I'm concerned about," Madara sighs. 

Izuna crosses his arms. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Madara groans. He buries his face in his hands. "_Please _put a proper mantle on." 

Izuna makes an indignant sound. "Not this shit again-"

"Watch your language," Madara snaps, "You can't just walk around with-"

"You're such a prude-"

"_Izuna Uchiha-"_

Tobirama clears his throat. Izuna glances over his shoulder at him. With a long-suffering sigh, Tobirama slips off his fur and places it delicately behind Izuna's neck, pulling it forward so it rests snugly over his arms. 

Izuna stares up at him like he's hung the stars in the sky.

Madara cringes.

“Oh,” he breathes, “Thanks.”

“Hn.”

Madara watches with a puzzled expression as his younger brother disappears out the door, draped in Tobirama’s clothes and tucked beneath his arm.

“They've taken to each other so quickly," Hashirama says, a little amazed.

Madara nods resolutely.

"I'm going to kill him."

"_Madara_!" 

Tobirama and Izuna come home from Naori's after sunset, still arm in arm, their cheeks flushed from laughter.

They find their brothers on the floor in the front room. Madara is sprawled across Hashirama's chest, his arms wound tightly around his waist, his hair held back from his face with a ribbon. Hashirama's hands pass from between his shoulders to the small of his back in slow, uncertain movements. 

Izuna bites his tongue. 

Hashirama opens one of his eyes and looks up at them. With his free hand, he draws his index finger to his lips, and smiles. In his sleep, Madara curls closer to him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know i had 2 to it 2 em


	6. VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes i read my authors notes from september and they make me cringe i just need to put that out there. im amazed at how much ive changed as a writer since then. anyways! any tithe chapter six part TWO electric boogaloo 
> 
> also everyone wanted me to put translations directly into the text!!! so im adding that where it's appropriate, otherwise they're at the bottom :)

It's quiet when Madara wakes up. He can hear Hashirama breathing beneath him, slow and even, Izuna and Tobirama speaking in cautious tones in the library down the hall, the wind outside rattling the world ever so slightly. Light from the lanterns filter in through the paper windows, casting , warm bronze shadows down the curve of Hashirama’s jaw and staining his bedsheets gold.

Madara isn't sure how or when they ended up in bed together- but it feels incredibly natural.

He didn't _like_ violence. It just so happened that fighting was the convenient way to prove to himself that he was still alive, still confined to a body and bound to the earth; each misstep and singed hair and torn mantle kept him grounded, present from the set of his jaw to the aching soles of his feet. He had never _known _anything else- and so by that logic, serenity and comfort should make him feel at _least_ unsettled.

He'd thought about it before- _dreamed_ about it even, always with Hashirama at his side, tethered to his hip and shouting idealism at the top of his lungs. 

He chuckles fondly, rolling onto his side and resting his head against Hashirama's shoulder. 

Hashirama is smiling serenely at him, his dark eyes half-open and unfocused. He's reaching across his body and stroking Madara's hair, his hand glowing green and humming with soothing chakra. Down the hall, Izuna laughs aloud, and Madara hears the squeal of what he assumes is one of Tobirama's- summons? Maybe that's not quite the word for it. 

“He uses dolphins or something, doesn’t he?” Madara asks, his voice rough from sleep.

Hashirama smiles blissfully, and closes his eyes. “He does.”

"Is that a summoning contract?" Madara yawns, "Or like... a _suiton _thing?" 

"_Suiton," _Hashirama answers, "I don't think it would make sense for him to use actual dolphins on land, anyways." 

"I mean- they're mammals. Who knows." 

Hashirama beams at him. "Mammals?"

“You’re staring,” Madara says softly.

Hashirama laughs fondly. Just as he opens his mouth to say something, Madara hears the protective seals he'd installed at the front of the house hiss. He grimaces. He can hear Naori and Hikaku talking over each other, which is almost never a good sign. On top of that, he's still half-awake and snuggled up against _Hashirama _of all people. 

Naori would probably talk his ear off about it after the fact. Hikaku might give him the occasional skeptical glance going forward- but he supposes it wouldn't be the end of the world. 

“You can go back to sleep, if you want," Hashirama murmurs, dragging him closer. "I can probably deal with it." 

“Operative word being 'probably',” Madara mutters, pressing closer to him. Hashirama makes a startled sound. "They're _my_ advisors," Madara continues, resting his hand over the side of Hashirama's chest, "I'm not so irresponsible that I can't speak with my own advisors."

Even though diplomacy demanded a certain amount of emotional labor that Madara wasn't quite sure he felt equipped for, it was far more pleasant than the atrocities they'd had to deal with during the war. Whatever it was Naori and Hikaku were bickering with each other about, it couldn't be much worse than one of the handful of botched hostage negotiations that had ended in beheadings, or the once when the Nara clan had been hired by some rival lord to systemically execute their already sparse reserves of medic-nin- Madara closes his eyes. 

The Senju were probably the clan that had the most outright contemptuous relationship with the Uchiha, which was a little ironic given the circumstances- but their relationship was a lot less sophisticated than with other clans. Sure, the Kaguya clan had beheaded their hostages, the Nara had wiped out their medics, the Chinoike tended to target Uchiha out on reconnaissance missions- but in the end, it was the never-ending violence between the Senju and the Uchiha that cost them their greatest number of causalities, that most thoroughly depleted their resources.

_Unfortunate_, Madara thinks bitterly. It just so happened that of two of the most powerful factions in the country, one greatly favored the Senju, the other favored the Uchiha, and they saw fit to weaponize the two clans against each other. It had been that way for generations. Madara never expected it to change. 

The bedroom door slams open.

He looks up to find Toka- one of Hashirama's cousins- towering over them. Her hands are braced on either side of the door, and her lips are set in a scowl. Naori and Hikaku are flanking her, looking somewhere between supremely annoyed and a little bit guilty. Madara grimaces. He doesn't want to think about how he looks, curled up against Hashirama's side like a child, his robes splayed open and exposing his chest. 

Evidently, Hashirama doesn't seem to want to think about it either. He's withdrawn from Madara and pushed himself into a sitting position, his cheeks deeply flushed. 

Toka glowers at Madara. She could be just as imposing, if not more so than Hashirama.

“Hashirama, if you could peel him off of you for a minute- I need to have a word with you." 

Even over the rustle of Izuna unfurling a scroll on the drafting table, Tobirama can hear Toka storm in and out of the house, can feel the way Madara’s chakra flicker unsteadily as he’s roused from sleep. He grimaces.

Toka had always been... well, less than enthusiastic about reconciling with the Uchiha. That happened to be the attitude of most of the older members of the Senju clan. Tobirama feels a little irresponsible- he'd been spending the day with Izuna, with Kagami, wandering awestruck through the Uchiha compound rather than attending to his duties as second-in-command after Hashirama.

Then again, he reasoned, he was _seventeen _years old. He should be allowed to act like it, at least once in a while.

Tobirama looks at Izuna and catches him running careful fingers over the raised line of scar tissue that circles up around his throat. He frowns.

“Zuz-”

Izuna glares at him. "Don't speak so familiarly with me yet." 

“Sorry," Tobirama says dryly. He crinkles his nose. "Izuna."

The Uchiha smiles bleakly, thought he’s clearly appraised with the effort. “It’s just-” he swallows thickly, pressing the heel of his palm against the scar, “It feels inflamed.”

“It probably is,” Tobirama says flatly, “I haven't looked closely at it, so I wouldn't know."

Izuna narrows his eyes. "I don't know _why _you'd want to look at it closely, Tobirama."

"So I can _help _you," Tobirama mutters.

"And _why _would you want to help me?" 

Tobirama heaves a long-suffering sigh. "Because I _want _to, Izuna," he quips, "Because it's the compassionate thing to do. I don't know."

Izuna blinks at him.

Without making a sound, Izuna shifts closer to Tobirama, sitting so their thighs are pressed together. He tilts his head back slightly and swallows, closing his eyes. He exhales harshly. "It's..." he opens his eyes again, looking off to the side, "It's not _easy, _you know.

Tobirama hums softly. “I know it isn't.”

He reaches forward and splays his fingers apart slowly, infusing medical chakra to his palm. He rests his hand lightly against the base of Izuna's throat, giving pause for a second to gauge his reaction.

Izuna makes a quiet, startled sound. He leans forward slightly and closes his eyes again, one of his hands blindly finding its way to Tobirama's thigh. He squeezes gently, and Tobirama suppresses a shudder. 

“I’d never hurt you intentionally,” he murmurs, running his hand up Izuna's throat, "I'm... sorry if I ever did."

Izuna hums. “It feels nice.”

Tobirama scoffs. “What does? Being hurt?”

Izuna makes a thoughtful sound and squeezes his thigh again, grimacing as Tobirama's hand slides over a part of the scar that's badly inflamed. “Sometimes,” he says. 

Tobirama makes a high pitched sound and withdraws, shifting back from Izuna and resolutely smoothing a crease in his undershirt. Izuna cracks one of his eyes open and smiles mischievously.

"You're very pretty, Tobirama." 

“That's- that's unnerving."

“Yeah?" Izuna laughs a little, "What's unnerving? Being so pretty?" 

“Izuna-"

"I'm _joking!" _Izuna says dismissively, sitting back on his hands, "It's a joke. I mean, seriously, Tobirama, what do you think of me?"

Tobirama watches, transfixed, as Izuna launches into hysterics. He rolls onto his side and clutches his stomach, smacking his hand against the floor. It's less than endearing- it _should _be less than endearing, but there's something about seeing Izuna soften up like this that Tobirama thoroughly enjoys. Maybe it absolves him of his guilt, somehow, maybe it makes him feel young, maybe Izuna really is_ just that pretty._

“Tobirama?”

Tobirama shakes his head. He'd zoned out a little, apparently. "Sorry-"

“Toka hates us.”

Tobirama blinks at him. 

“Us," Izuna says again, "You know- the Uchiha. More specifically, Madara and I."

Tobirama clears his throat. "I'm sure that's-"

"Is it because Tajima killed her parents?”

“Ah,” Tobirama grimaces. 

Izuna is asking him honestly- there's no trace of his usual good humor in his expression. Tobirama isn't sure how to answer. 

“Her mother killed Azami,” Izuna says grimly, “Otherwise I wouldn’t really keep...er- count.”

“...Azami was-?”

“My mother,” Izuna winces, “Not that it’s her fault, really.”

Tobirama nods sternly. He licks his lips. "I'm- I'm sorry, Izuna. You're not obligated to forgive-" 

"What," Izuna snaps, "You don't think I'm _capable _of forgiving her? Of forgiving _you_?" 

Tobirama rubs his temples. He can feel a headache coming on. "I didn't-"

"I've got news for you," Izuna continues, "Everything your elders told you about us is a bunch of bullshit _propaganda_. I'm not any more 'genetically predisposed to hatred' than the rest of your stupid clan, and neither is Madara, and if you paid attention to how much he loved your-"

"Izuna, _please."_

Izuna crosses his arms, but says nothing. Tobirama closes his eyes and draws a steadying breath. 

"I'm... sorry," Izuna says suddenly. "I'm sorry." 

"It's fine," Tobirama says quickly, "This isn't easy for either of us. Even if we take to each other quickly, we still have a lot to learn about each other."

"And to _un_-learn_," _Izuna amends, "You know. _Prejudices."_

_"_I have none."

"I do," Izuna snaps, "I think you're stupid. And I think your whole clan is stupid too." 

Tobirama flinches- and then Izuna's expression softens, and he bursts out in hysterics again. 

Before Tobirama can come up with a witty retort, the door to the library flies open and Madara storms inside, his face stained with a dark blush. Tobirama recoils a bit at first, though it’s admittedly a knee-jerk reaction. While Madara’s chakra isn’t foul per se, it does have a certain foreboding quality to it. Sort of like the way the sky darkens before a storm.

Silently, he deposits himself at Izuna’s opposite side and curls in on himself, wild hair tossed casually over his shoulders like a throw blanket. Tobirama hears him heave a sigh. If he didn't know any better, he might think Madara was actually blowing _smoke_ out of his nose. Izuna laughs gently, twisting to the side and resting his hand over Madara's shoulder.

“Hu yuhiabik,” Izuna murmurs, shoving him lightly.

Madara scoffs. “La hu lm yafael.”

Tobirama doesn’t pretend to understand what they’re talking about. He doesn’t ask any questions. In the end, he assumes, it's probably for the best.

The library is modest- quaint, almost. The moonlight and the lanterns cast pretty highlights over everything, over the drafting table, over Madara's hair, 

“I’m asking you to reconsider,” Toka says defensively, “I’m asking you to consider the potential consequences of your decision- of giving into your impulses like you _always _do."

They're standing at the edge of the compound, where the beaten footpaths give way to the woods again. Toka is sneering at him, her sharp features drawn back by her tight ponytail, her dark skin creased with frown-lines and sunspots. Hashirama is outright fighting to keep himself from making a sour expression at her.

He respects Toka, loves her as much as any other member of his family- but he's _wary _of her. 

There wasn't a single member of their clan who hadn't lost an immediate family member or friend to an Uchiha- and Hashirama knew as well as anybody that was, proverbially, a two-way street. Some people held tighter to their grief than others- and Hashirama understood. He really did. He just couldn't force himself to hold Madara and Izuna- not _Madara- _accountable for what Tajima had done, certainly not when Tajima had tortured the two of them all the same.

“I appreciate your concern,” Hashirama says sternly, "But I have absolutely no reason to suspect-" 

“_You," _Toka says pointedly, "You have no reason to suspect him, but I do- the rest of your _family_, of your _clan_-"

“We’re as guilty as they are,” Hashirama snaps, “You haven't earned the right to make generalizations about the Uchiha when we're fundamentally no different from each other." 

He notices, a bit belatedly, that his chakra is acting up a bit- wood creaks somewhere behind them, his hair lifts off his shoulders. He draws a steadying breath.

Toka huffs, crossing her arms over her chest and rattling her breastplate. She had a particularly severe way about her, though Hashirama understood that she was fundamentally good- even if Butsuma had managed to _indoctrinate _her. 

“If you can't find any other way to make yourself useful, you're more than welcome to reach out to other clans about joining the village," Hashirama says tensely, "I trust your judgement. I _do_\- just not when it comes to Madara." 

Toka bows lightly. 

“I lost my temper," she says flatly, "I apologize." 

Hashirama’s expression softens slightly at that, though his lips remain pinched in a frown. “You don't have to apologize. I know you mean well." 

“I do,” Toka grumbles, “I think, deep down, I really do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;)  
hu yuhiabik: he loves you!  
la hu lm yafael: he doesnt


	7. VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> having a panic attack bcos of school and boyfriend but its hashimada friday babey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we love to relive important moments from our formative years. more arabic, but its just madara asking hashirama if he's there.

Hashirama never ceases to be astounded by how _deeply _Madara can sleep. 

The journey to the foothills had been a short one- made on foot in just under a week. More than once, Hashirama found himself sharing Madara's tent for one reason or another; either he was too tired to cross the camp to his own tent, or Madara had been particularly reluctant to sleep by himself. Of course, Madara had a roundabout way of admitting that he wanted Hashirama to stay. Generally, Izuna slept huddled against Madara’s chest, their legs tangled together, Madara's fingers combing gently through Izuna's hair- needless to say, he wasn't particularly lonely or touch-starved. 

And so Hashirama stayed. Sometimes, Tobirama joined them, and the two pairs of brothers slept in an unneat pile beneath a patchwork quilt sewn from rabbit furs- Izuna pressed against Madara's chest, Hashirama's arms loosely around Madara's waist, Tobirama an arm's length away at his opposite side, the only point of contact between them their ankles beneath the quilt.

And once, Madara turned on his side- eliciting a little groan from Izuna. Thinking Hashirama fast asleep, he slid his hand beneath his cheek, rested their foreheads together, and murmured something unintelligible. Hashirama bit the inside of his cheeks to keep from smiling. 

Hashirama thinks, deep down, he'd always... _known_. 

He can still remember the bend in the river where the forest gave way to the mountains and the open water, the weight of his sandals slung over his forearm. It was beautiful- orange and lavender and bright, summery green. Madara was backlit by a brilliant sunset, his dark hair swept up in a tangle of braids and curls and lengths of leather cord, his yukata hanging open over pants a size or two too big for him, cinched at the waist.

It endeared Madara to him immediately, the frustration written across his pretty features, the way he carried himself with a confidence he hadn't quite earned yet- hadn't quite grown into. When he spoke out loud to himself, it was in a language Hashirama couldn’t understand- but recognized distantly- throaty and smooth and light as white tea.

Madara had, of course, been suspicious of him at first. It was in his nature, despite all his compassion, to be wary. Even then, no older than seven or so, he had worn the evidence of Tajima’s abuse in the deep set of his eyes, the lines of his face, the new bruises that blossomed yellow on his throat and his wrists, overlapping the ridges of hard scars from all the battles he never should have been made to fight.

When they met for a second time, Hashirama healed Madara’s black eye and split lip. When they met for the third time, just after Kurawama’s death, Madara found Hashirama on the riverbank, crying into his hands. 

He'd pulled Hashirama against his chest, stroking his hair while he healed himself- evidently, Butsuma hadn't been very happy with him for crying over his brother.

“You’re not alone,” Madara had promised him, “I may not be as strong as you, but I’ll always keep you safe.”

Madara meant it. He was just... _sincere_ like that. Hashirama's chest feels a little tight.

When they were about thirteen or fourteen, during a spar, Madara had struck the center of Hashirama's chest. 

He'd lost his footing- not badly, but Hashirama had always had a flair for the dramatic. He took a tiny step backwards and slid off the edge of the cliff they had been sparring near. The water stung a little when he crashed through it- but he held his breath, waited at the bottom of the river. 

It had barely been ten, fifteen seconds- and Madara came crashing through the surface of the water.

And there's a blank space after that- a few missing seconds before they clawed their way to the surface- but then there's Madara, sweeping his tightly coiled hair back from his face, his arms trembling, his eyes bright, bright red. 

“Oh-" Hashirama felt a little short of breath. Madara was touching his eyes, biting his bottom lip to keep it from trembling. "Oh," Hashirama repeated, "oh, Madara. Oh, Madara." 

Madara’s _sharingan_ was brilliantly wine-red, still bright enough for the tiny black smudges of the tomoe to be clearly visible. The glaze of unshed tears, too, gave it an admittedly striking- and sad- quality, and Hashirama felt his heart shatter in his chest. His jaw slackened for an instant, and Madara’s hands shot up to his face to cover his eyes.

“No-" he'd said, a little desperately, "Hashirama, don't look." 

He locked eyes with Hashirama for an instant- just an instant, long enough for Hashirama to feel every nerve in Madara’s body burning, screaming at him to run away as fast as he could- and before Madara could move, Hashirama seized his wrist, held him still. Madara froze.

“Don’t,” Madara had warned, “Hashirama, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t.”

“Madara, don’t what?”

“Don’t touch me.”

Immediately, Hashirama withdrew. Madara made a pained expression, and after a beat of tense silence, he shot forward and grabbed Hashirama again, threading their fingers together and holding him tightly.

“I meant don’t go.”

“Can I touch you, then?”

“Yeah," Madara said quickly, his voice trembling, "Yeah. Touch me."

“Can I hold you?”

“Please," Madara ground out, "Please hold me."

Slowly, carefully, he’d stepped forward and folded Madara in his arms, pulled him flush against his chest and planted a soft kiss at the crown of his head.

“Will you leave?” Madara asked, “Now that you- now that you know?"

“Oh,” Hashirama laughed breathily, “No. Not unless you want me to." 

Madara just shook his head, held him tighter. "I don't ever want to be without you," he'd said simply, "Not ever, Hashirama." 

Hashirama kissed his head again.

They stood there for what felt like an eternity, Madara catching his breath against Hashirama's chest, the water up to their waists, the sun dropping behind the jagged peaks of the mountains. 

Hashirama tightens his arms around Madara's waist. In his sleep, Madara makes a soft, startled sound, turns to look over his shoulder at him. His _sharingan _flash in and out of focus, and he smiles lightly, then goes back to sleep. After a minute, Hashirama kisses the back of his neck.

When Hashirama leans down and presses his palm against the center of his chest, Madara stirs again.

“Hal’ant hunak, Hashirama?”

“I don’t know what you’re asking,” Hashirama teases. Secretly, he adores the way Madara slurs his mother tongue, and though he’d taught Hashirama very little, it was less frustrating to hear him speak a language they didn’t share and more captivating; Hashirama has always wondered what language Madara dreamt in.

Madara makes a quiet, placated sound as Hashirama strokes his chest, and Izuna cries out a little as Madara shifts away, taking all of his warmth with him.

It’s quiet for a minute or two. Izuna settles in against Madara's side again, and Hashirama counts Madara's rattling breaths, smiling to himself as they grow progressively deeper. 

“...Did you always know?” Madara asks absently.

“Yeah.” Hashirama doesn’t ask him to elaborate. Instead, he runs the pad of his thumb along Madara’s browbone, watching with a smile as his _sharingan_ whirl lazily in his half-open eyes. “I’ve always known.”

On Hashirama’s opposite side, Tobirama props himself up on his elbows, looking supremely annoyed. 

"Anija," he says, deceptively gentle, "Would the two of you go the fuck to sleep?"

Hashirama barks out a little laugh- earning another unhappy groan from Izuna, and then settles back down against Madara's opposite side. 

When he wakes up, his index finger is wrapped around Madara's, and their noses are only a hair's breadth apart. Madara's eyes are still half-open, his _sharingan _whirling in his sleep.

Madara likes to memorize as much of Hashirama as he possibly can. He likes it so much, in fact, that sometimes, he forgets to deactivate his _sharingan _before they fall asleep. 

The _mokuton_, as it turns out, is incredibly sturdy, and perfect for infrastructure.

  
It’s grueling work- an entire morning of growing trees short enough to be harvested with handsaws, trying to grow tiny half-structures with pre-bowed bark and hollow spaces for insulation. Initially, Hashirama had just wanted to grow the _mokuton _into permanent structures and be done with it- but there were only so many failed attempts he could bear without growing a little demoralized.

So by the time there’s enough wood to begin construction on the settlement it’s already early afternoon, and despite the frigid cold, Hashirama is dripping in sweat, his muscles trembling from the exertion.

Tobirama sits behind him and rubs a camphor salve into his shoulders.

The smell of burnt earth sears the back of Hashirama's throat as he tries to steady his breaths- the Uchiha had elected to survey the surrounding area for any valuable mineral deposits; some of them were particularly interested, it seemed, in starting an underground mine, a handful of them rather overzealous about the prospect of detonating their hoarde of explosives. 

Madara was off... handling it.

“Easy," Tobirama murmurs, patting Hashirama's back, "Don't strain yourself."

Hashirama makes a pained sound as the heels of Tobirama’s palms roll over a tight knot of muscle. He lurches forward a little and hangs his head between his knees. His chakra flickers weakly. 

“Between all the work you've been doing with Izuna and this, it's no wonder you're exhausted," Tobirama continues, "Especially given how little you actually _sleep_." 

“You're one to talk," Hashirama teases, "You know, if you want to stay up and talk to Izuna about _dissections_, you could do it in a separate part of the tent, at least."

Tobirama sucks his teeth, dragging his hands over the knot of muscle again and eliciting an undignified yelp from Hashirama. He smiles wickedly, then sets to work on the offending knot, humming apologetically. Hashirama pouts over his shoulder at him.

“I was going to say, it's nice seeing you in relatively good spirits," Tobirama huffs, "Usually you get _unbearably _moody in the winters."

"It's the _mokuton_," Hashirama makes a soft sound, his shoulders sagging slightly as he relaxes against his brother’s chest.

Tobirama lifts his eyes. Izuna is walking hand in hand with Kagami, swaddled in one of Tobirama's old furs. When he sees Tobirama he smiles a little-catlike, almost,- and waves. Tobirama swallows thickly and drops his eyes again, then lets them slide shut.

The older Senju is humming pleasantly now, his dark hair spilling over the sides of Tobirama’s thighs. Tobirama lets one of his hands wander to the crown of Hashirama’s head, pushing his fingers slowly through his brother’s hair.

“You’re wearing zinc, right?” Hashirama looks up at him, his dark eyes admonishing. Tobirama flicks the crown of his head resolutely.

“I am,” he assures, “Would you just sit back? I'm trying to comfort you."

Hashirama clicks his tongue, but settles back against Tobirama's chest.

Though he’d be damned to admit it, Tobirama _reveled _in his brother's attention. Hashirama had a unique way of making him feel safe, feel cared for, seen and heard and every good thing he'd grown up believing he didn't deserve. He likes when Hashirama teases him, when Hashirama dresses his wounds, the odd mornings when Hashirama wakes up before he does and brings him meager breakfasts and stale tea. 

Hashirama is so unbelievably _kind_, Tobirama thinks- sometimes he isn't sure if he's Butsuma's son at all. 

“Anija," Tobirama says gently.

Hashirama makes a soft, affirmative sound.

Tobirama clears his throat, strokes Hashirama's hair gently. "How would you describe your- er- how do you think you'd describe your relationship with Madara?"

Hashirama looks up at Tobirama, a little puzzled. “Our relationship?"

“I mean-” Tobirama heaves a long-suffering sigh, "You... you love him, right?" 

Hashirama blinks at him, stupeifed, and then relaxes again, closing his eyes and smiling pleasantly. "I suppose I do," he says absently, "I can't imagine why I... why I _wouldn't_."

“Ah."

“He’s..." Hashirama hums, lifts his hand to pinch his chin between his first two fingers. "He's articulate. He's probably the smartest person I've ever met- and I don't just mean strategically- he has this incredible... I don't know. This _emotional _intelligence to him that I don't think many people are privy to, just because they don't know him that well, but it makes him... really easy to love." He chuckles nervously, "I guess _love _is kind of a nebulous idea. I don't know. I think sometimes I feel a little possessive over him, too, because he's so-" Hashirama trails off.

Tobirama grimaces. 

"He's remarkably beautiful," Hashirama says finally, "A little bit breathtaking. It's hard to explain without embarrassing myself."

"Oh, you've embarrassed yourself plenty," Tobirama teases, tugging on his hair. Hashirama swats at him. 

"He's dense, too," Hashirama adds, "I think he trusts me, at the end of the day- but I'm not sure how he feels about me at all." 

“I think it's fairly obvious that he-"

"I'm _unimpressive_," Hashirama says bitterly, "I mean, I know I have the _mokuton _and everything, but besides that, I don't think there's very much for me to offer him- or anybody, for that matter. I just can't imagine Madara _loving _me." 

Tobirama bites his lip. He tugs Hashirama's hair again.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Hashirama asks softly.

“Don't start," Tobirama says gently, "Anija, don't start. I can think of a million reasons he'd have to love you."

It's quiet for a moment then- Tobirama squints against the glare of the sunlight that comes off the snow in bright, silvery squares, studies the distant lines of shinobi trudging through the snow with little bundles of wood and survey stakes, watches Kagami tackle Izuna to the ground. 

There's a sort of...domesticity to it, almost. A finality- a little glimmer of hope. 

“I think Izuna likes you," Hashirama says suddenly, "Madara's noticed it too. He says he catches Izuna looking at you like you've hung the stars in the sky, and that it makes him feel a little sick." 

Tobirama smiles lightly- he thinks that maybe, if he were a little less tired, he might even laugh at that.

He glances up again. Izuna's hands are flying through seals- Kagami fumbling as he tries to copy the sequence, and then yowling when he fails, pounding his fists against Izuna's chest. Izuna draws his hands back quickly- and then presses the tip of Kagami's nose with his index finger, making a loud, unbecoming honking sound. Kagami squeals with laughter. 

There’s a certain gentleness that all of the Uchiha seem to move with- something Tobirama feels a little guilty for not noticing before. Just over the horizon, he catches Madara sweeping his hair off his neck and tying it up in an unneat bun, holding a hairpin between his teeth. A stray braid slips from his fingers and immediately, one of his clansmen goes to sweep it back up for him, tucking it beneath Madara's hairtie. Madara smiles graciously, and Tobirama closes his eyes.

Hashirama is dozing off against his chest now, his muscles still trembling lightly. Tobirama ruffles his hair affectionately.

“That's how Madara looks at you," he says quietly, "Less like you've hung the stars in the sky and more like you're the reason there's a sky at all." 


	8. VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY HASHIMADA MONDAY DUSTIES <3

It's well into the evening when Hashirama finds Madara again.

The bare bones of the compounds have been build already- though the houses are admittedly a little less _sturdy _looking than some of the old Uchiha compounds. Hashirama suspects that in time, they'll reinforce their tents with clay and mosaics again, once everything starts to feel... well, _normal_. Even with that being said, Madara’s home is relatively easy to find, secluded along the edge of a winding path at the end of the compound, framed on all sides by tiny, immature saplings, the door boxed in by fine, intricately detailed tapestries in tawny, gold, and blood-colored threads. Hashirama isn't sure what the embroidery says- but it's beautiful either way. 

Hashirama doesn’t bother to announce himself. He toes off his boots and sets them aside on the porch, lifts the indigo-blue canvas curtain Madara had installed in lieu of a door and lets himself into the front room. Madara's sparse possessions are, for the most part, still packed away in crates. There's a tiny mirror mounted on the wall, an old, silver portrait of his family that he's balanced on a windowsill and already burnt a stick of incense by- an unpolished falconry glove and a stack of tattered robes spilling out of an upturned crate. 

Madara's shillouette is visible from the living room- he's kneeling on the edge of his futon, robe sliding off his shoulders, combing through the hair at the back of his head with a snarl on his face. The comb he's using snags on a silver wire and Madara makes a wounded sound; Hashirama can't help but to laugh a little.

Madara doesn't react when Hashirama crosses the threshold to his bedroom. He's sitting with his head in his hands, his elbows braced on his knees, the comb- embossed with tiny, ivory cranes- hanging stubbornly from a gnarled braid adorned with silver and copper wires. 

Silently, Hashirama passes behind him and kneels at his back. He pushes Madara's already-combed hair over his shoulder and delicately pulls the comb free from the tangled section. His fingers find his way to the end of the braid- he doesn't ask Madara for permission to undo it.

Madara leans against him slightly, pressing his back against Hashirama's side and bowing his head forward. He sighs a little when Hashirama pulls the offending twist of wire from his hair, the tension sliding from his shoulders. Hashirama can't help but to smile at that. 

When they were younger- when they were _friends_\- Madara had always gone to Hashirama for help with his hair, insisting he was gentler than Tajima and better at braiding than Izuna. Evidently, neither he nor Izuna had improved at braiding very much in the years that passed; there are loose sections of wire and beads pressing tightly against his scalp, little spots of pinkish, dried blood here and there where Madara had slept on them. Hashirama heals them without thinking about it, presses his thumb over the scabs he finds as he works the old, gnarled braid loose. 

“I meant to wash it," Madara murmurs, "It's been almost a week."

"I have conditioner packed away somewhere," Hashirama says offhandedly. Madara snorts. 

"You would," he huffs, "Spoiled Senju." 

"What's mine is yours," Hashirama insists. He unravels the last section of the offending braid and sits back on his heels, passing his hands over Madara's neck, over his shoulders, over his back as he withdraws. He unbuckles his breastplate, cursing his trembling fingers as he does so. The buckle is snagged on the fur trim around his shoulders, too- he has half a mind to just rip the trim off and throw it on Madara's bedroom floor somewhere.

As if reading his mind, Madara gives a little laugh and passes in front of him, sitting back on his haunches and unfastening the trim from his armor. Their knees are touching, Hashirama notices, heat creeping up his neck where Madara's hands are hovering, _their knees are touching- _and Hashirama has to laugh at himself, because yes, their knees are touching, and somehow that feels more intimate than Madara sleeping tucked against his chest for the past odd week, feels like at any second Madara might lean forward and close the distance between their mouths, like Madara's hands might pass over his chest, up his neck, over his jaw-

“Have they built your house yet?" 

Hashirama blinks at him.

Madara is smiling at him, questioning, amused. “You came into my bedroom like it was the most natural thing in the world. Are you expecting us to live together?"

“Ah-" Hashirama clears his throat. Madara lifts his armor over his head and sets it aside, his hands passing down Hashirama's arm to unfasten the pieces of armor secured around his forearms. "No, I just-"

“I'm not asking you to leave," Madara says quickly. 

Hashirama laughs. Madara's cheeks are a little flushed, his gaze decidedly averted. "I'm not leaving," Hashirama says gently, "Not if you don't want me to. I don't really want to sleep by myself."

Madara scoffs, slides Hashirama's hand out of his forearm protector. "Right. Tobirama's staying at Naori's."

“'Slumber party'," Hashirama says, trying the words out for size, "Have you ever heard of such a thing?" 

“Of course I have," Madara scoffs, "What, you never had one with your cousins when you were younger?" 

"No," Hashirama pouts.

"Don't feel so bad," Madara says breathily, "I think our parents only let us have them to pacify us." He sets Hashirama's forearm protector aside and makes quick work of the other one, cradling Hashirama's still-trembling fingers in his hand as he unfastens it. Hashirama closes his eyes.

"Aren't you... happy that they're all getting along?" Madara tries, setting the other forearm protector on the floor alongside the first one. Hashirama's fingers twitch a little.

He flops onto his back, dragging a hand through his hair, sweeping it up into a ponytail. “I am,” he murmurs, “I just feel... I don't know- a little overwhelmed by everything.”

“You’re exhausted,” Madara says gently, "I'm sure that doesn't help."

Hashirama brushes his fingers along Madara’s side in lieu of a response. 

Outside, the sky has taken on an almost greenish quality. Madara thinks that maybe he should light candles, especially if he's planning to wash his hair, because God only knows how long that'll take him- but the prospect of just putting his hair up and curling up beside Hashirama, maybe kissing his chest until he falls asleep, maybe placing Hashirama's hands on his hips, pushing them beneath the edges of his robe, over his bare chest-

It’s astounding, Madara thinks, how quickly the world can fall apart, and how quickly it can all come together again. It’s astounding that despite everything, the two of them are together again.

He leans forward slightly, stretching his legs out beneath him as he rolls onto his side. Hashirama's breathing is deep and even- it's amazing how quickly he can fall asleep. Madara kisses his shoulder and settles into bed beside him.

“You sleep like the dead, you know,” Madara murmurs, smiling lightly and pressing a second kiss to Hashirama’s cheek. “Can you hear me, Hashirama?”

It’s quiet. Hashirama draws another slow, steady breath.

“You’re beautiful,” Madara says quietly, “I think you’re so beautiful. Do you know that?”

Hashirama doesn’t answer. Madara kisses his cheek again- he feels his chest tighten, feels his heart starting to hammer a little as heat creeps up his chest, up his neck to his cheeks.

“...Can you get under the covers, at least?"

Hashirama is quiet, unmoving beside him.

“Hashirama, get under the covers.”

He shoves him lightly once, twice, and Hashirama makes a startled sound, looks blearily up at Madara. 

“Get under the covers, or go sleep somewhere else. I’m cold, and your fat ass is keeping us from getting under the blankets."

“Oh,” Hashirama smiles gently. He raises his hips enough that he can slide the covers down the futon without really having to move. Madara rolls his eyes. He rests his head on Hashirama's outstretched arm, throws his leg over Hashirama's hip. Hashirama wraps his free arm around Madara's waist and pulls him close, huffing out a little sigh. 

“You need a bath,” Madara grumbles. Hashirama makes a tired, noncommittal sound, and then- "...What about your hair?"

"I'll wash it tomorrow,” Madara murmurs, "First thing in the morning, and I'll wash my sheets too since you insist on getting into my bed with me in your sweaty ass clothes."

For a moment, Hashirama is so still and so quiet Madara thinks he’s already fallen asleep again. He presses himself as close against his chest as he can get, tucking his head beneath Hashirama’s chin so he can press his lips lightly against his throat. Hashirama hums happily.

“I wish it could be like this all the time," he says distantly, "Just the two of us. Just like this."

Madara opens his eyes a little- he doesn't remember when he closed them. 

Hashirama looks so... _peaceful. _His hair is spilling over Madara's pillow, his lips pursed slightly, his eyelids fluttering as he fights sleep. It's amazing to think that just a minute ago, he was up on his knees, unbraiding Madara's hair, up letting himself into Madara's house, up singlehandedly building a village- _their _village.

_It would be_, Madara thinks, letting his eyes slide shut, _oh, Hashirama, you have _no _idea. _

Tobirama practically has to _peel _Izuna off of him in the morning. 

Kagami is sprawled out on the floor above Tobirama's head beneath a comically large fur, his heel pressing painfully against the crown of Tobirama's head, and Izuna is wrapped so tightly around him that Tobirama feels short of breath- less because Izuna is so close to him and more because Izuna is so _close _to him, practically squeezing the air from his lungs. 

It's quiet, for a blessed moment, and Tobirama strokes Izuna's hair. Kagami shifts slightly in his sleep, kicking Tobirama in the head as he does so. Tobirama groans- and Izuna makes a distraught sound at even the slightest change in their sleeping position. Tobirama groans again, and shoves Izuna's forearms. 

"I can't _breathe_," Tobirama whines, "Izuna-"

There's a flicker of foreign chakra outside that catches Tobirama's attention. His hands still braced on Izuna's forearms, he wedges himself up into a reclining position, narrows his eyes experimentally. 

He recognizes Toka's voice almost immediately- proud and haughty, cutting through the stillness of the morning, punctuated by the rustle of heavy cloaks and muffled footfalls. 

She'd gone off on her own a couple of times during the night as they traveled- and she'd been receiving an unusual number of hawks during the days. Hashirama had, of course, advised her to reach out to other clans if she was so unhappy with their alliance with the Uchiha; Tobirama just hadn't expected her to do it so soon, and let alone with...

Tobirama closes his eyes. 

Butsuma had been a gifted sensor. When Tobirama had shown a proclivity for sensory _jutsu_, he'd been absolutely _thrilled_\- by the time Tobirama was five or six, he was able to identify all of the minute differences not only between individuals, but between clans, particularly those with distinct _kekkai genkai _or nature releases. 

_God- _Tobirama tries not to think about Butsuma. His father is the last person he wants to think about this early in the morning, especially given how hard he's trying to concentrate. 

Izuna whines. Tobirama squeezes his forearms.

He screws his eyes shut. 

Sensory _jutsu _is a lot more abstract than he thinks non-sensors realize. Izuna's chakra, for example, has a lukewarm, opalescent quality to it; Kagami's has a glasslike texture to it, Naori's reminds him of oil paints, Toka's makes him feel like he's biting down on a sheet of tin. Hashirama's has an _abundance _to it that makes him incredibly easy to sense- similarly, Madara's has an overwhelmingly foul quality to it, like resin and charcoal, the kind of foulness that just _clings _to whatever Madara gets close too-

Izuna groans and tightens his arms around Tobirama’s waist. "Would you _please _lie back down."

“Stop," Tobirama says harshly, "I'm trying to think."

And the Senju clan, by and large, had earthy chakra signatures- a sterility, a freshness to them. The Uchiha clan had chakra signatures that were indulgent, suffocating; the Nara had elusive signatures, the Yamanaka had signatures that were floral, staticy, the Hyuuga had signatures that were...

Tobirama crinkles his nose. 

It was the Chinoike that Toka had brought, he realizes with a grimace. The Chinoike were notorious for stealing and exploiting other clans' _kekkai genkai _during the war- their chakra signatures had hollow, haunting qualities to them. And the Chinoike had a _notoriously _bad relationship with the Uchiha; a generations-long history of random violence, kidnappings, assassinations... Tobirama suspects this isn't going to _end _well.

He pushes up onto his elbows, earning outraged reactions from both Izuna and Kagami. 

"Lie the _fuck _back down," Izuna cries, "Please- oh my god, Tobirama, it's _freezing-_"

"Quiet," Tobirama says sternly. Izuna blinks up at him.

Tobriama tries to remember how many houses there are between Naori's and Madara's. 

Finally, Izuna relinquishes his grip on Tobirama's waist. He pushes himself up into a sitting position and glances towards the door- Tobirama thinks, rather inappropriately, how pretty he looks with his hair down. His skin is peeling in places, mostly around his nose and the corners of his eyes from the cold. Tobirama makes a mental note to bring him a pot of one of Hashirama's salves for it. 

“So _now _you see what I'm talking about?"

"Shut up," Izuna snaps, sweeping his hair up into a ponytail and getting unsteadily to his feet, "You weren't _talking _about anything. You were just being fucking annoying." 

Tobirama gets to his feet with a groan. He stretches his back experimentally, raising his hands over his head. 

Izuna, meanwhile, is scrambling for his sandals. "You could have said something," he says harshly, "Like, if you had said, 'hey, Izuna, I think we're going to have a fucking problem', I would have woken up." He snatches Tobirama's sword from where it's resting against the wall and rolls it across the floor to him. Tobirama scoffs.

"That wasn't very efficient."

"Oh, _bite me_, Tobirama."

Tobirama squints. The glare from the sun off the snow is _un-fucking-bearable_. Toka is speaking animatedly to a group of Chinoike, gesturing towards the Senju compound. The Chinoike are clad in heavy armor and sour expressions- Tobirama wonders, distantly, if Toka is actually clueless, or if this is an act of political violence or _what_\- Izuna lunges forward and Tobirama catches his arm with a curse.

"Tobirama-"

“Don't do anything," Tobirama hisses, "You're still recovering, and I think we should wait until Madara-"

As if on command, Tobirama sees Madara come barreling out of his front door- _s__ix houses_, he thinks with a grimace, _it's six houses between Naori's and Madara's- _he’s barefoot, wearing a short sleeved tunic in lieu of his mantle, bandages hanging loosely around his calves; evidently, he'd been in the middle of wrapping them. His chakra has it's same usual foreboding quality- a little bit like a pot about to boil over.

Almost immediately, the Chinoike at the head of their group seize the hilts of their swords and whirl around. Madara looks at them- and then to Toka, his features twisting into a snarl.

Izuna clears his throat. "What the fuck did you-"

“_I _didn't do anything," Tobirama says quickly, "This is on Toka."

Izuna gives him a skeptical look.

Tobirama suddenly feels a little guilty. He swallows thickly and looks over his shoulder, meeting Izuna's gaze. "I don't want anything else to happen to you," he offers, "So please don't think I have anything to do with this- oh, Izuna, stop cowering."

Izuna blushes darkly, pressing himself against Tobirama's back. "I'm not cowering."

“You are.”

“I am _not_, Tobirama, and-”

Madara springs off his porch with a snarl.

As if on cue, Izuna reaches around Tobirama's waist and snatches his sword, crossing in front of him and all but leaping into the fray. Tobirama sighs- more exasperated than anything, and starts at a light jog towards them. He catches a glimpse of Izuna, hurdling himself over Madara's shoulder. His foot collides solidly with one of he Chinoike's chests, and he disappears behind a fireball- 

And then, almost immediately, a flurry of wild roots and half-trees shoot up from the earth. 

Tobirama isn't sure how he missed it- Hashirama is standing on Madara's porch with his hands folded in a seal, tucked beneath his chin, still wearing the clothes he'd had on yesterday. His jaw is slack, his expression awed like even he can't quite believe how quickly he'd moved.

The _mokuton _groans to life, shrieks, writhes around, and then grinds to a halt. Tobirama grimaces. 

Butsuma wasn't a kind man. He was distant, cold, unforgiving- he _hated _Hashirama. He never, ever made a secret of it- but without Butsuma, Tobirama isn't sure Hashirama would be even a shadow of the man he was. He isn't sure how or _if _the _mokuton _would have developed, how their clan would have survived the winters without it, how _Hashirama _would have survived at all. 

But it's early- it's far too early to think about Butsuma, to think about what the world might be like without Hashirama in it.

He ducks beneath an errant branch, carefully stepping over one of the Chinoike, who is pinned to the ground by a tangle of vines by her wrists, her hips, her throat. She swats at his ankle. Izuna is standing in the center of the tangle, his grip on Tobirama's sword going slack, his arm held over his head by a coil of wood. He looks over his shoulder at Tobirama, his eyes wide, his teeth sunk into his bottom lip. 

“Come here,” Tobirama says gently, offering Izuna his hand, "It won't hurt you. Don't be-" _scared, Izuna, I'm right here, I won't let anything happen to you_, "such a baby."

When he moves, the _mokuton _tightens around his throat, threatening to suffocate him.

Madara closes his eyes, tries to concentrate on being still, on counting his breaths- tries to think about Hashirama. 

He imagines Hashirama's forearm pressed against his throat like this, Hashirama straddling his waist, Hashirama's thigh pressing up between his legs- Madara groans, and the _mokuton_ tightenss around his throat again. He tries to swallow. He thinks about Hashirama's forehead pressed against his, Hashirama's chest flush against his own, his legs wrapped around Hashirama's waist. He thinks about how nice Hashirama's lips would feel against his own, against his jaw, against his throat- the _mokuton _tightens again. 

"_Fuck_-" Madara hisses. He lifts his free hand- the other one is pinned over his head by a particularly thick branch- and claws at his throat. One of the Chinoike swats at his outstretched leg- Madara groans again. He's starting to feel a little short of breath.

He draws a shallow breath through his nose. He can feel his _sharingan _whirl to life involuntarily- the vine around his throat goes slack and he inhales sharply, his back arching off the ground a little. "You _asshole_-"

"Madara!" 

Hashirama is there, kneeling between his legs, his hands braced on either side of Madara's chest, passing over his throat, through his hair. Madara closes his eyes tightly, trying to deactivate his _sharingan_. Hashirama's voice is cutting in and out- Madara still feels a little bit like he's struggling to find his breath. 

_Madara_, he makes out, _Madara, Madara, Madara._

He hates it- no, he loves it, loves the way Hashirama is calling his name like a mantra, loves the way he can barely catch his breath, the way he's teetering just on the edge of consciousness. 

He thinks that maybe it's less about the _mokuton _now and more about his shitty, failing lungs. This happened, from time to time, and usually Izuna would just roll him on his side until he coughed something up, until his _sharingan _would finally deactivate- _God, _he just wants his _sharingan _to deactivate. 

There's a second pair of hands on him now, pushing him onto his side. Madara exhales shakily. Hashirama's hands are braced on his shoulder and his jaw, respectively, his thumb rubbing soothing circles on his cheek. The coil of _mokuton _that had been pinning one of his legs behind his hips unwinds and Madara jerks forward, coughs once. He rests his forehead against Hashirama's knee. 

"Fuck," Hashirama says shakily, "Fuck, fuck, Madara- I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." 

Madara's _sharingan _finally, _finally _deactivates. He exhales harshly, and coughs again. "Fuck."

Izuna is rubbing small circles in his back, pulling his hair back out of his face. Distantly, Madara wonders if Hashirama knows that none of this is his fault. 

Evidently, he doesn't. A moment later, Hashirama is dragging Madara up against his chest, his hands roaming Madara's chest and throat for any signs of damage from the _mokuton_. 

_You won't find any_, Madara wants to say. 

Instead, he rests his chin on Hashirama's shoulder, leans up against his neck. 

"Fuck," Hashirama says once more. Madara can't help himself- he laughs gently, and squeezes Hashirama's waist. 

"Yeah," he scoffs, "'Fuck' is right."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol sometimes i hate myself for writing this fic. OCs? what r thoooooooooooooooooose. also the uchiha/chinoike spat is loosely inspired by xx_bittersweet_merlin 's "palingenesis"- admittedly i came across the chinoike clan while i was like....idk sadly browsing narutopedia. as far as i know, though, they're the first author to use them in a fic like this, so credit where credit is due!!!!! i wouldve used another clan im more familiar with but i want to uphold some semblance of canon compliance, and the chinoike do, at some point, go extinct.


	9. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'aready know its Hashimada Friday UPDATE 25 APRIL 
> 
> DOG.....................................I CANNOT BELIEVE HOW BAD THIS CHAPTER WAS...IM SO SORRY

When all is said and done, the Chinoike just... up and leave.

As quickly as they'd shown up, they disappear back into the forest. Hashirama- generous as he is- treats their wounds after the _mokuton _is released, and sends them on their way with sparse rations of food, water, and medicine. 

And then Madara watches from his porch as Hashirama tears into Toka in the middle of the compound, both of them red in the face, clearly unaffected by having nothing short of the entire Uchiha clan watching them from their porches, from their windows. Izuna drapes him in a blanket and makes him strong, oversteeped tea, hugs his knees to his chest and sits back to watch Hashirama and Toka's screaming match.

Izuna clears his throat suddenly. 

"Hal'ant bakyhr?" _Are you alright? _

Madara laughs gently. He leans over and rests his head on Izuna's shoulder. "Iyah," he murmurs, "The _mokuton _is unpredictable like that. It wouldn't be the first time I'd been injured by it."

"Hara," Izuna says sharply- _bullshit. _"I meant your shitty lungs."

Madara grimaces. He says nothing. Hashirama is gesturing wildly, his lips pulled back in a snarl, baring his pretty, white teeth. Madara shifts uncomfortably. "Iyah," Madara repeats, "Zuzu, 'ant tuqalaq kathiranaan," _you worry too much_. 

"I think I worry just enough," Izuna huffs. 

They sit in silence for a moment, Izuna's head resting against Madara's shoulder, Madara trying not to think about Hashirama's hands on his throat, on his waist. 

He hates himself for it- just a little bit. It's so unbelievably hard not to fall more and more in love with Hashirama each passing day, each time he kisses the crown of Madara's head in that overly-affectionate way, each time he throws his head back in a fit of rancorous laughter, each time he hums old Senju lullabies under his breath when Madara is trying so _hard _to fall asleep. 

"You should tell him the truth," Izuna says gently.

"There's nothing to tell him," Madara murmurs, "We don't even know that there's anything actually wrong with me."

Izuna's expression softens a little. He presses a kiss to Madara's shoulder. "You know that's not what I mean." 

Madara closes his eyes. He does- he knows that's not what Izuna means at all.

And it takes weeks- weeks of Hashirama crawling into Madara's bed with him, weeks of Madara waking up with Hashirama's arms wrapped securely around his waist, weeks of paperwork and and _planning _and sending form after form and grant after grant to the _daimyo _for funding. It turns out the _mokuton _can only do so much- they need to accommodate the defectors from other clans and the civilians that have already started flooding into the village (if it can even really be called that at this point) without thoroughly exhausting Hashirama's chakra. 

God- Madara finds himself outright _marveling _at how strong Hashirama is, at his unshakable will, his unparalleled strength, and how at the end of the day, he always finds his way into Madara's bed with him, overtired and sore. 

Some days, Hashirama outright forgets to eat, and so Izuna cooks while Madara helps him wash his hair and salve his muscles. Evidently, the _mokuton _could only do so much for him, too- he barely had the energy to heal himself most nights. 

Hikaku and Toka had gone off on an extended campaign together to garner interest from other shinobi clans and civilian groups about the village. Initially, Toka had refused, citing the campaign as an excuse for Hashirama to have her out of the village (to which Madara remarked, greatly unamused, _I mean, can you blame him?)- _but in the end, Hikaku somehow managed to talk her into it. 

Sometimes, Madara thinks Hikaku would be a much more compelling clan head than he was. 

And admittedly, Toka was quick to the draw in reaching out to the Chinoike- though evidently, she was genuinely unaware of the less than agreeable history they had with the Uchiha. Madara didn't exactly want to give her the benefit of the doubt- but really, what was the alternative? 

The village comes to be quickly. As it turned out, some of the shinobi who had defected to the village were proficient in earth release, and so clay was increasingly easy to come by; Hashirama had offered them free land, medicine, and other provisions indefinitely in exchange for their labor. Some of the civilians, too, were artisans- Madara commissioned them for mosaics in the Uchiha compound, and Hashirama consulted them about everything from interior design to decorating to landscaping.

The administrative building, unfortunately, is finished long before the hospital, which is still a modest skeletal structure with only a sparse handful of resources and medics from the Senju clan. 

"Better than nothing," Hashirama reasons. 

...But it's _idyllic_. Madara's evening routine changes quickly from filing invoices and falling asleep at the cartography table to taking long walks with Izuna- sometimes carrying Kagami on his shoulders- or Hashirama- again, sometimes struggling to carry Hashirama on his shoulders when he inevitably exhausts himself. The village is beautiful- every house a point of starlight, paper lanterns and pushcarts lining the freshly paved common outside of the administrative building, the forest shielding it from the world on all sides.

It feels secure, maybe even deceptively so, but Madara tries his hardest not to think about it. 

And as for Hashirama- the two of them had become practically inseparable. Every moment Hashirama could spare, he spent with Madara.

The seasons change quickly. The snow gives way to dead grass which gives was to new grass, which gives way to little clusters of snowbells and hibiscus. There's less and less work to be done- Hashirama pulls Madara up into the mountains with him and they look down over the village, press their shoulders together, take turns napping with their heads in each other's laps. 

Madara thinks Hashirama might be trying to kill him slowly. 

“I used to love it here,” Hashirama says offhandedly one evening. 

There's a gentle breeze lifting Hashirama's hair off of his shoulders, the lanterns in the common casting orange highlights across his throat and up over his jaw. They're sitting on the edge of a cliff together, their ankles intertwined, Hashirama's body angled slightly away from Madara's as he leans back on his hands.

Madara grimaces.

"Used to."

“Oh,” Hashirama laughs breathily. He sweeps his shining brown hair behind his ear, withdrawing from Madara and leaning back on his elbows with a satisfied groan. "I still do! I'm just... reminiscing."

Madara snorts. "Funny how you do that."

“What? Reminisce?" 

Madara shrugs. "I don't really have to anymore."

Hashirama nods solemnly. From the corner of his eye, Madara watches as he brings his hand to his mouth and starts biting his thumbnail. It's unhygenic and infinitely endearing all at once- he fights the urge to pull Hashirama's hand away from his mouth and lace their fingers together instead.

"Is this how you imagined it?" Hashirama asks, lifting his gaze to meet Madara's.

The wind blows Hashirama's hair loose from where it's tucked behind his ear. Madara doesn't trust himself to reach out and smooth it back into place without capturing Hashirama's full, pouty lips in a kiss. 

God, _god_\- he wants to kiss Hashirama so badly. In the mornings, Madara wakes up and finds Hashirama's lips pressed gently against his shoulder, his arms wrapped loosely around his waist, his hands dangerously close to his hips. In the mornings, Madara finds himself caught between slipping out of Hashirama's arms and stepping outside to compose himself and turning on his opposite side to kiss him- and usually ends up falling back asleep trying to decide.

And in the office- _god_\- in the office, Hashirama is constantly boxing Madara in against his desk, constantly touching Madara's hair, touching his hands, bringing him coffee, leaving his hair everywhere. He stretches in the middle of the office, spends hours at his desk braiding and re-braiding little sections of his hair whilst neglecting his paperwork, he laughs so loudly, so brightly, so _often_\- Madara almost never gets any work done. 

And worse yet, there are moments like these, when Hashirama's hair is falling from behind his ear, getting in his mouth, obscuring his smile. Moments where Hashirama is looking at him with such unabashed adoration that it makes him feel sick to his stomach, moments where he's touching Madara's hands, Madara's thighs, half-awake and- oh _god_, with that earnest, imploring look on his face, with his big brown eyes glittering in the lights from the village, or from the candles in Madara's bedroom- _their _bedroom, because there are little traces of Hashirama in every last corner of Madara's world. 

"Madara?" Hashirama asks gently. 

Madara shakes his head. He tilts his head back slightly and closes his eyes. 

"Yeah," he says quietly, "It's exactly how I imagined it."

Hashirama makes a soft, affirmative sound. 

A beat of silence passes, and then Hashirama shifts to put his head in Madara's lap. Automatically, Madara reaches down to stroke his hair. He keeps his eyes closed, focused on the weight of Hashirama's head against his thighs, the softness of his hair between his fingers. 

"Nothing's missing?" Hashirama asks.

Madara swallows what he thinks might be a sob. "No," he says, his voice a little strained, "No. Nothing comes to mind." 

Hashirama outright _despises _paperwork. 

On any given day, he can be found slinking about the village, making smalltalk with vendors in the common or sharing tea with somebody on their porch- and on any given day you could find either Tobirama or Madara at his heels, trying their hardest to corral him back into the office. (Though, admittedly, Tobirama tries much harder than Madara does when it comes to corraling Hashirama.) 

Hashirama also outright despises the Senju elders.

More than once, they'd given him an earful about keeping Madara so close to the village's administration, as if it wasn't _their _village to begin with, as if they hadn't unanimously wanted him installed as clan head after Butsuma's death. If they trusted him then, when he was scarcely sixteen, why not trust him now? Furthermore, why not trust _Madara_? Hashirama will just nod politely and try not to lose his temper about it.

But when all is said and done- he greatly prefers this to the alternative. 

Hashirama outright _adores_ Madara.

He can't even begin to count the ways he adores Madara. He adores the way Madara leaves a little trail of beads and feathers and wire wherever he goes, adores the way he talks to children, the way he talks to animals- Madara had taken to feeding the families of feral cats that roamed about the village in the wee hours of the morning, disappearing just before sunrise and then climbing back into bed with him after. He adores the way Madara looks trying to balance two coffee cups at once, the way Madara touches his hair, the way Madara touches his mouth when he thinks Hashirama is fast asleep-

God, he loves the way Madara touches him when he thinks he's asleep. Madara touches his mouth, his eyes, his hair, his chest, follows invisible lines from the tips of his fingers up over his throat. He speaks to Hashirama in cautious tones, switching effortlessly between languages. 

_Hashirama, Hashirama, Hashirama. _Madara says his name like a prayer. Madara handles him like he's sacred.

And every time, he thinks about bringing Madara's hands to his mouth and kissing across his knuckles, cupping his cheeks and kissing across his lips. He thinks about the mortified expression Madara might make, about the way his features might soften, about how his eyes might slide close as he kisses him back. He thinks about Madara peeling off his robe, making quick work of Hashirama's tunic, Madara straddling his hips and-

Oh, Hashirama adores him. 

And for once, it's just Hashirama in the office with Izuna- Madara had gone home to nurse a headache, and Tobirama was standing guard in the archives on the second floor to keep the two of them from leaving until they'd finished the knee-high stack of Hashirama's paperwork.

"It's thick paper, at least," Hashirama tries, "You know. Er- papyrus." 

"It's absolutely not papyrus paper," Izuna corrects, "But, you know what- believe what you want to believe."

Izuna is curled up at the corner of the office, surrounded by small candles, mindlessly stamping a scroll with one of the chops Hashirama had commissioned from one of the civilian artisans. He’s tucked himself beneath a long length of scrap fabric; Madara had become particularly fond of trading for silks now that the weather was warmer, and in true Madara fashion, left little bundles of fabric wherever he went.

Hashirama watches him with a gentle smile. 

Izuna has a strangely calming presence about him. He's confident- haughty, almost- not unlike Madara, but a lot less volatile. 

Hashirama clears his throat. It's just after midnight, he thinks- he'd never been particularly good at reading sundials, and the analog clock Tobirama had installed in the office was doubly perplexing. Izuna looks up at him.

"It's awfully quiet," he comments, "You know, without Madara here to argue with."

“Do you bicker often?” Izuna asks dryly. He sets his stack of paperwork aside, mindful of the circle of burning candles around him. Hashirama smiles nervously at him.

“Er- no, not really. I mean, he teases me a lot-"

“Oh, yeah. Because he loves you?” Izuna says plainly. 

Hashirama chokes on his spit and starts coughing. Izuna looks at him with an expression not unlike a startled cat.

“What did you say?” 

Izuna rolls his eyes, and then returns to smashing Hashirama's chop into the empty corners of the scroll. "I said 'because he loves you'."

Hashirama gapes at him.

Izuna heaves a long-suffering sigh, and closes his eyes. He looks a lot like his mother, Hashirama thinks, rather inappropriately.

He’d never met Azami, not properly, but he'd seen her on the battlefield more times than he could count. She was, in almost every sense, the living embodiment of grace, cunning and fiercely protective, a mess of wild, black hair and clay-colored skin. Madara had inherited her wild hair, and Izuna seemed to have inherited everything else- her soft features, her subtlety. (The only resemblance either of them bore to their father was in the occasional sternness of their resting faces.)

Hashirama wonders what Azami might have thought of him if she’d lived to see the village built. He clears his throat.

Izuna is watching him expectantly. Hashirama swallows- his mouth feels unbelievably dry.

"He what?" 

Izuna's expression softens a little. "Hashirama," he says gently, "He _loves _you."

Hashirama licks his lips. 

He thinks about Madara's hands passing over his hair, over his waist, over his hands. He thinks about the way Madara's expression seems to be constantly shifting between wounded, bewildered, uncertain, the way Madara searches his face like a child for some indication of how to act, of how to-

Of how to love him. 

Izuna bites his lip. "Oh, Hashirama, do you not-"

“Unconditionally,” Hashirama says quickly. "_Unconditionally_."

Izuna smiles at him and claps his hands together. "See? Easy. So tell him."

Hashirama laughs. "It's not easy-"

"God, you _are _daft-" Izuna clasps a hand over his mouth. His cheeks turn a deep, unflattering red. "Oh, I'm sorry." 

Hashirama laughs again, gentler this time. "No, you're right. I am."

"...So is Madara," Izuna offers, "I mean, I think most people kind of are. It's... it's scary." 

Hashirama sits back slightly, folding his arms across his chest protectively. Izuna sets about snuffing out the candles with his fingers, folding the silk he'd been snuggled underneath in a neat pile at the corner of the office. He unfurls the scroll he'd been working on fully so the ink can dry, and deposits Hashirama's chop on the edge of his desk. 

"Tobirama likes you, you know?" Hashirama offers. Izuna freezes, his hand hovering over the chop. Hashirama smiles a little. "Isn't that obvious?" 

"Don't try to change the subject." 

"Isn't it obvious?"

"You're deflecting," Izuna says sternly- but there's no mistaking the flush across his nose, across his cheeks. Hashirama reaches out and touches Izuna's hand very lightly. 

"If I can be brave, so can you," he says softly, "I mean- If you _like _Tobirama-"

"It's not that easy."

"Isn't it?" 

Izuna narrows his eyes at him, and then leans over the desk and kisses his forehead very lightly. Hashirama smiles. 

"When I was little, he used to talk about you like you were..." Izuna trails off and withdraws slightly. He bites his lip. "I'm not really sure how to describe it. He talked about you like you were this otherworldly, mythical being. He was so... mystified by you. For a long time, I didn't think you were real."

Hashirama swallows. 

"I never thanked you for healing me."

"You didn't have to."

Izuna smiles and kisses his forehead again, then gathers his robe around him and turns to leave. He glances over his shoulder at Hashirama as he's setting his chop back in the desk drawer, and smiles wickedly.

"But, anyways. Hashirama, could you imagine my surprise when I finally met this person he adored so much- and I saw that you had a _bowl _cut?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally im so sorry i made yall read this HAHAHAHAHAHAHA................HAHAHA.............. ORZ


	10. X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hashimada friday..............................but make it saturday

In the morning, Madara wakes up and finds Hashirama's side of their bed empty- and more than anything he's struck by the realization that, subconsciously, he'd started referring to his bed as theirs, and the right side of it as Hashirama's. 

It's more revelatory than he'd expected it to be. He _loves _Hashirama, he's certain of it, and now everything looks just a little bit brighter, from their bedsheets to the wooden crate of broken chops Madara had been sorting through after his walk, the little strands of beads Hashirama had hung from the ceiling to catch the light in the mornings. 

And he's throwing his sheets off, peeling his robe off and scrambling for the cold coffee Hashirama had abandoned on the counter the previous afternoon, and it doesn't matter _where_, exactly, Hashirama is, but Madara steps into a pair of Izuna's sandals- where the fuck are his sandals- and starts off,a little dazed in the direction of the office.

It's spring, and it's quiet, a little bit foggy, but the dawn hasn't broken just yet, and the village is illuminated by lanterns and candles and steam is pouring out of every few chimneys as people put water on for their morning teas, and all Madara can think about is crawling into Hashirama's lap, kissing his lips, watching his eyes flutter open and shut and then lying down on Hashirama's open robes and reminding him that they really need to get everybody a fucking stove somehow.

God- oh, God. Madara misses him so much he can barely think straight, and they've only spent a night apart, no doubt with Hashirama and Izuna passing out in the office or something, and he's starting to get worked up thinking about how they did this for years, for _decades _on end-

And now there's this _village, _and it's _theirs, _and it's _beautiful_. 

There's a little wooden cart at the entrance to the common where a civilian woman is setting out little pastries wrapped in parchment and paper cups of coffee, and she greets him with a smile. 

"Oh, Madara," she says tiredly, "good morning."

Madara smiles politely. She strokes her chin. 

"Sorry," he says offhandedly, searching himself for the little cinch purse of coins he tries to keep on him, "I'm a little distracted this morning." 

The woman just hums affirmatively, sweeping a length of greyish hair back from her forehead and stacking two pastries on top of each other. She crouches down to retrieve a paper bag from the bottom of the cart. "Out looking for your partner?" 

Madara blinks. "My what?" 

The woman resurfaces with the paper bag and delicately stacks the pastries inside of it, then drops two paper cups of coffee in a square-shaped container that looks like it's made out of a cardstock. _Cardstock_, Madara thinks, _when the fuck did I find out what cardstock was? _

She thrusts the bag at him. "Your partner," she repeats, "the pretty one, with the nice brown hair." 

Madara swallows thickly and nods. "Right," he says, cradling the paper bag and container against his chest, "the pretty one." 

"The pretty one," the woman affirms. She smiles sweetly at him, bows a little. "Breakfast is my treat," she murmurs, standing upright, "I never did get to thank him for helping me set up the cart, you know."

Madara almost spills coffee down the front of his robe fumbling with his keys. 

He's calmed down considerably by now, sobering up on the walk from his house to the office, and the back of his mouth tastes like stale coffee- and now there's the distinct possibility that Hashirama doesn't feel the same about him, which is discouraging to say the least. Sure, Izuna had been telling him for months that _Hashirama loves you, and I'm certain of it_, and Hashirama slept in his bed and kissed his hair and wore his clothes around the house- but Madara couldn't shake the feeling that he didn't deserve it, that he didn't deserve either of them, didn't deserve any of this. 

Because when all is said and done, Madara is fairly sure he should be dead, and that's usually enough to help him feel grounded. It was, anyways, until Hashirama came along and decided, seemingly out of nowhere, that he was going to stick around a while.

The stairs are uneven, follow a winding stretch of turret and stone pillar up to the office. The windows are all open- they were supposed to start installing bars on the outsides that week- and framed by unsturdy scaffolding, and from them Madara can see the bare bones of the hospital, the finished wings a stark contrast to the hollow spaces giving way to forest behind them. 

He rubs his chest with the heel of his palm, the bag of pastries and container of coffee balanced carefully in the crook of his opposite elbow. 

He's looking forward to the hospital being finished more than he cares to admit, if only because of the patient confidentiality practice they were planning to implement; it meant he could finally get himself checked out without sending Hashirama into hysterics. 

Then again, Hashirama hadn't... said anything about his health. Nothing explicit, anyways, which meant it wasn't as bad as Madara thought it was, or Hashirama just wasn't looking for something wrong to begin with. Either way, it couldn't hurt to get checked out.

The Uchiha had always had respiratory problems- cardiovascular problems? Medical terminology still made Madara's head spin sometimes. It presented as scarring, usually, and organ damage, usually attributed to the overuse of _katon,_ sometimes the _sharingan, _but the_ sharingan _had its own set of problems; sealing itself as it was used, damaging the nervous system of its users, sometimes causing blindness... the list went on. 

Akira and Tajima had particularly bad scarring, and Azami had been functionally blind when she died, but so far Izuna hadn't had any particularly troubling symptoms, and Madara was profoundly grateful for that. There were few things more comforting to Madara than knowing Izuna was safe, healthy, loved.

As for his own health, it's... not exactly a priority when compared to everything else. He's see what Hashirama is capable of in the way of medical _jutsu. _

He raps the knuckles of his free hand against the threshold of the office door.

Nothing.

He toes the door open and lets himself inside. 

Izuna is nowhere to be found- Madara tries not to let himself be alarmed. It was more than possible he had just come home after Madara was already asleep, or he'd gone to sleep at Naori's or stay with Tobirama- he _really _should crack down on Izuna spending so much time away from home- and Hashirama was sprawled out at his desk, his hair draped over his folded arms and his _haori _slipping down his shoulders. 

Madara smiles fondly. 

He sets the coffee and bag of pastries on the edge of the desk and passes behind Hashirama, pulling the shoddily drawn curtains open just a bit. They were a heavy, violet-colored fabric, adorned with hideous gold tassels- but Hashirama loved them. He said they looked _regal_. 

Hashirama groans. Madara shoves his shoulders lightly. 

"I brought us coffee," he says quietly, "fresh coffee. Plenty of cream."

Hashirama groans again. 

Madara pulls his chair back slightly, opening the space between Hashirama's body and his desk, then gets carefully to his knees. He rests his hand on the outside edge of Hashirama's thigh, ignoring the flash of heat that passes up his neck when Hashirama's muscles twitch beneath his fingers. 

God, he loves Hashirama. He _loves _Hashirama. It gets progressively less and less frightening to say to himself. He tightens his fingers a little. "Better than that crap you left in the kitchen yesterday."

_The kitchen- _that's good. It's not his kitchen, not their kitchen. There's a nice neutrality to it- the sort of language that won't startle Hashirama somehow. 

Hashirama reaches down and covers Madara's hand with his own, his face still buried in the crook of his opposite elbow. Madara draws a shuddering breath. "You drank it anyways, I bet," Hashirama says tiredly, "you'll put literally anything in your body."

"You-" Madara laughs nervously, "You have no idea." 

"Not good for you," Hashirama mumbles, "It scares the shit out of me." 

Madara clears his throat. "It's not so bad."

"It is," Hashirama protests, "one of these days you're going to get sick or something." 

"And then you'll heal me," Madara reassures him, patting the back of his hand, "you- you wouldn't let anything happen to me. I know that."

"But what if I did?"

Madara sighs and straightens up a little, withdrawing his hand from Hashirama's. He pushes on his shoulders gently to try and ease him into a sitting position, and Hashirama covers his head with his hands in protest. 

"Hashirama."

He doesn't budge. Madara pushes his shoulders again. "Hashirama, come on."

A beat of silence passes and then Hashirama leans back, exhaling harshly and sweeping his hair back from his face. His eyes look a little glazed- Madara suspects he didn't sleep well. 

"What if I can't?" 

Madara blinks at him. "What?" 

Hashirama looks up at him, his eyes wild with panic. Madara comes up short for breath.

"What if I can't heal you? What if- what if I fuck up and you die because of me? What am I supposed to do?" 

"Wh-" Madara swallows thickly. He lets another beat of silence pass before he reaches out and places his hand delicately on Hashirama's shoulder, circling around the chair so he can climb into his lap. 

At first, Hashirama makes a startled, almost pained sound. Madara tucks both of his knees to the side of Hashirama's hip- straddling him doesn't seem appropriate under the circumstances- and then Hashirama's arms come up tightly around his waist, and Hashirama is pressing his nose into the side of Madara's neck and Madara feels like he can barely breathe. 

He loves Hashirama, _adores _Hashirama, and he thinks, a little selfishly, that maybe Hashirama should adore him too.

_Maybe he does_, Madara lets himself think as Hashirama's hands pass over his back and back down to his waist, _maybe he does_, and Hashirama's lips are so warm against his neck, _maybe he does_, and Hashirama is kissing his neck, breathing him in, nipping at his skin.

“How could I have missed that?” Hashirama asks, tilting Madara’s head to the side slightly. His voice is still shaking a little, and his hands are resting solidly on his hips. Madara inhales sharply, and then groans. 

“What?"

Hashirama's lips come up over his jaw. He tucks a braid behind Madara's ear. "You have an earring."

"I do," Madara affirms- and then gasps a little as Hashirama pushes back his robe, slides his fingers over Madara's bare stomach. 

"Is this alright?" 

"_Yes_," Madara gasps, "yes, yes, please don't stop." 

"Don't stop what?" 

Madara makes a shapeless sound in response, and Hashirama withdraws a little. 

His eyes are red- maybe from sleeplessness, maybe from crying, Madara can't really tell- but his pupils are _blown, _black practically swallowing up the pretty honey-color of his eyes, and he's biting his lip a little, his expression questioning and uncertain. "Madara, what don't you want me to stop?" 

"Don't make me say it," Madara grits out, closing his eyes, "Hashirama, I don't need to say it." 

Hashirama exhales shakily and kisses Madara's cheek. 

"What if I fuck up?"

"You won't," Madara says sternly, "you won't fuck up. You can kiss me." 

Hashirama chuckles a little at that- and then he closes the space between their mouths and Madara shifts so he's straddling him, and it's painless and it's so, so easy to kiss Hashirama, and so easy to let Hashirama kiss him back, even though they're both shaking and Hashirama's hands are a little too rough at Madara's waist. 

Madara can't help himself. He pushes his hands through Hashirama's hair, shrugs his shoulders so his robe slips down around his arms. Hashirama makes another, pained sound and slips his hands under Madara's arms, touches his chest, inhales sharply. Madara barely has time to remember that he loves Hashirama, barely has time to consider the possibility that _maybe Hashirama loves me _before his back is flush against Hashirama's desk and the air is knocked out of his lungs and Hashirama's hips are pressed between his legs. 

"You can't fuck this up," Madara says out loud- to himself or Hashirama, he isn't really sure. "You can't fuck this up, you won't fuck this up-" and Hashirama's lips are pressed against his again, and he's smiling against Madara's mouth so sincerely that Madara has to close his eyes a little tighter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahah finally. but fellas is it gay to capture your homies lips in a tender and passionate kiss


	11. XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \^o^/ dont get too comfortable tho.

The serenity of the morning is interrupted by the sound of harsh, rattling breath and the clatter of office miscellany against the drafting table.

It’s almost startling the force with which Hashirama throws him against the table, but Madara is careful not to let the air be knocked from his lungs. He draws one of his legs up to his chest, his shin resting against Hashirama’s sternum to keep him at a careful, calculating distance. In response, Hashirama exhales harshly against his lips, his hands finding purchase in the bunches of fabric at Madara’s hips. 

There’s a quality about it all that feels unreal to Madara- like kissing Hashirama is simultaneously the most foreign and natural thing in the world, like he’s numb from the lips down and on fire all the same. Hashirama is smiling against his lips, gracious and hungry, and Madara is helpless to do anything but cup his jaw and draw him closer and closer each time they part. 

They must look terribly uncouth- both of them equally unexperienced and equally unconcerned with the foreign chakra swimming in the morning air to indicate that Toka and Hikaku may have been successful in their negotiations with the Uzumaki, with the inviting, familiar openness of the doors and unfinished windows. Hashirama slides his hands under Madara’s back and pulls him close enough that their chests press together, and in response, Madara whines at the loss of Hashirama’s lips against his. 

“Sorry,” Hashirama laughs, “Madara- sorry.” 

Madara pulls him closer again, twisting a hand in Hashirama’s hair to keep him from breaking the kiss. Hashirama makes a noise that sounds like a perfect mix of contentment and agony. 

Hashirama’s uncertain hands are braced on either side of Madara’s hips now, the larger man pressing himself against the edge of the desk to keep close. Madara tilts his head to the side with a gentle smile, allowing himself to revel in these moments before the inevitable, irreversible change in their relationship- whether that be for better or for worse.  
There’s a nagging voice in the back of Madara’s head that insists, despite the odds, that perhaps things will change for the better. 

Outside of the tower, Madara can feel a deep, shimmering pool of unfamiliar chakra with the humid quality of summer storms and sulfur, and he crinkles his nose. Hashirama is insistent, desperate, clueless, his hands roving across the desk and the lower half of Madara’s body for some coveted, perfectly comfortable position, and Madara lets his eyes slide shut, lets himself bask in the warmth of his dark skin and straight hair, runs his tongue along the bow of Hashirama’s top lip. 

He has the insatiable urge to clean himself from the crown of his head to the spaces between his fingers, to dress in his finest silks and burn incense and candles, to start from the beginning and have every passing, tender thought of his about Hashirama come to fruition in the most perfect way in the solitude of his bedroom- but the awkward, insistent weight of Hashirama’s body against his own, the glare of the rising sun at the corners of his vision, the way he feels like he’s drowning and coming up for air at once is the predictable thing; the honest thing, the best possible outcome under the circumstances  
Hashirama makes a breathy sound against him, tilting his head to the side and parting his lips in a gentle, inviting smile. Madara kisses him earnestly, even as he hears the clatter of the paper door downstairs. 

When the kiss is broken again, it’s with the understanding that this is the sort of thing that can’t continue easily, and the look on Hashirama’s face is somehow both profoundly sad and profoundly hopeful. Madara presses his palm against Hashirama’s cheek reassuringly, thumbing at the dark blush that’s begun to spread across his nose and down his neck. 

“Stay with me tonight,” Madara offers, his tone insistent, “Regardless of what happens today, promise me you’ll come see me tonight.”

“I will,” Hashirama promises, “I can think of no way I’d rather spend my evening.” 

“Don’t waste any time trying to endear yourself to me,” Madara murmurs, stealing another kiss, “I promise, you’ve done more than enough in that regard already.” 

“Alright,” Hashirama says. He smiles, though his voice is a bit strained, his brow furrowed uncertainly. Madara braces a hand against his neck and kisses his chin lightly, moving to slide off the desk.

“We’ll pick up where we left off,” Madara says quietly, “I promise, we will.”

“Good,” Hashirama sighs, voice husky and low, “Good. I don’t know how I’d survive if we were never able to do this again.” 

He braces himself against the edge of his desk even as the footsteps outside build to a relative crescendo, boxing Madara against the desk. It’s still a profoundly intimate position for them to be in- Madara’s head is lolled to the side and hovering above Hashirama’s chest, his arms folded across his own and his body turned stubbornly towards the taller man. Hashirama looks like he’s struggling to catch his breath, his head bowed so his hair falls along the side of his face, framing it in all its dark, flushed beauty. Madara resists the urge to kiss him again as the door to the office flies fully open, Hikaku standing triumphantly on the other side of the threshold. 

“The Uzumaki have agreed to an armistice,” he says, smiling proudly. Madara makes a soft, noncommittal sound as Hashirama squeezes the edge of the desk possessively, the force behind the gesture enough to bow the wood a bit. Madara grimaces. 

It’s just Hikaku, he wants to say, but he bites his tongue. Instead, he stretches his leg forward to brace his ankle against Hashirama’s. It’s an awkward, but welcome and reassuring gesture. Hashirama’s shoulders sag a bit, and he exhales sharply.

Hikaku looks at them wearily, like he’d clearly intruded upon one of those beloved “sacred  
moments” of Hashirama’s. The notion of an armistice with the Uzumaki on the condition that their heiress be married into one of the founding clans was certain to not go over well if that were the case.

As if reading Hikaku’s mind, Madara turns to face him, his dark eyes narrowed and apologetic. “What are the conditions of the armistice?” 

Hikaku swallows thickly. Hashirama is towering above Madara, his eyes downcast and glazed, his dark skin flushed down to his chest. 

“The Uzumaki clan head wants to have his daughter married into one of the founding families,” Hikaku says meekly, “Though he hasn’t been incredibly specific about what that means, it’s clear to us he means that quite literally. He’s looking to sit down and draft a treatise with the two of you at your- er- your earliest convenience.” 

“Is that all?” Madara asks, his voice cool and unsteady. Hikaku cringes. He’d intruded upon something. He was sure of it. 

“Yes,” Hikaku says curtly, “That’s all.”

“Hn,” Madara turns his head to look over Hashirama’s shoulder, his gaze cast out across the winding streets of the village in its infancy, “Welcome home, Hikaku. Go take your rest.”

Hikaku bows lightly and goes streaking from the office like there’s a dog at his heels. 

The afternoon’s delegations are particularly awkward- Hashirama had changed into a fine set of armor and Madara had reluctantly followed suit, the two of them both dragging their brothers out of Madara’s living room in equally ornate garb. The whole walk to the village center, Izuna twisted a thin braid from his temple, biting his bottom lip to keep from bombarding his brother with questions.

Madara’s neck was flushed, his temper unusually short- he had snapped at Izuna for the relative untidiness of their living room, though there was nothing out of place but a forgotten scroll and a pair of his sandals- and Hashirama looked equally unnerved, though not unhappy. Under normal circumstances, and given the conversation he’d had with Hashirama the night before, Izuna would have suspected there was cause for some small semblance of celebration. Something had obviously happened between them. 

Tobirama, however, had sewn the seeds of doubt in Izuna’s mind just a few paces into their walk.

“The Uzumaki clan head wants to have his daughter married into one of the founding families,” Tobirama had said gruffly. Izuna narrowed his eyes. 

“Founding clans, or founding families?” 

“Founding families,” Tobirama said hoarsely, “Anija isn’t going to marry her.” 

Izuna grimaced. “If he thinks it’s in the best interest of the village, he might.” 

Tobirama scoffed. “Madara would sooner burn all of it to ash than let that happen. Don’t you agree?”

For an instant, Izuna could’ve sworn that Tobirama looked utterly terrified- not of Madara, no, but rather at the implication that one of them would have to oblige the Uzumaki’s request. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Izuna reached out and squeezed his forearm anyways, trying earnestly to imbue Tobirama with the same reassurance he was so often granted. 

“If they’re worried about producing heirs, it’ll have to be you,” Izuna muttered, “I’m not going to elaborate on that statement right now- the worst case scenario is that we refused their terms and they retaliate somehow, and that’s a comparatively manageable alternative to being married off.”

“That doesn’t mean I want it to happen,” Tobirama almost sounded hysterical. “I don’t care if it’s in the best interest of the village, I’m not going to be complacent in something like this-”

“Tobirama-” Hashirama’s voice is husky and cool, his eyes narrowed dangerously over his shoulder. At his side, Madara glowers back at them- though it’s less like a contemptuous expression and more like one of profound sadness and admonishment. 

There’s an unspoken understanding that none of them want to do this. It persists long into the afternoon. 

The Uzumaki clan head greets Hashirama with a bout of belligerently friendly laughter. He claps him on the shoulder. “You’ve aged remarkably,” he tells Hashirama, “You don’t look a thing like your father.” 

Hashirama smiles his way through the niceties of the delegation politely, all the while Madara hovers behind his shoulder. Even once they’ve settled into an uncomfortable silence at the table in the boardroom, Madara remains standing, towering over Hashirama with his arms folded across his chest. Izuna and Tobirama exchange nervous, questioning glances. 

Neither of them had any trouble admitting that Madara could be ornery or imposing, but seeing him so protective of Hashirama, so bereft of his usual dry humor and secret kindness was downright frightening. Even Hashirama, usually so overeager and boisterous, seemed to have been tempered by some subtle change in their relationship. 

Secretly, Izuna thought it was not a subtle change at all. 

The delegation drags on late into the afternoon. Izuna and Tobirama play handclap games under the edge of the table and drink white tea, only distantly invested but anxious about the delegation’s outcome nonetheless. Madara is equally, if not more tense; he only leaves Hashirama’s side for a few minutes to smoke tobacco outside- a nervous habit Izuna thinks he seemed to have picked up immediately after their father’s death- and when Izuna catches his eyes, they’re despairing and impatient. 

Hashirama is barely able to maintain his composure, his tongue slipping over easy words whenever Madara shifts above him or clears his throat. Izuna glances at Tobirama throughout the afternoon whenever he notices- Hashirama’s neck retains its dark flush invariably, though it creeps up his cheeks occasionally when Madara moves too close. 

“Something happened,” Izuna says just before sunset. One of the Uzumaki on the opposite side of the table raises her head from where it had been resting in her hands and squints at him with unbridled skepticism. Tobirama grimaces and loops his index finger around Izuna’s under the table, squeezing gently. 

“Keep your voice down,” Tobirama murmurs, the hysterical edge still not quite gone from his voice, “What are you talking about?”

“Between Hashirama and Madara,” Izuna clarifies, “I told Hashirama that Madara was in love with him last night, and-”

Tobirama makes a strangled sound that draws the attention of a handful of Uzumaki and Senju delegates. Izuna smiles apologetically on his behalf as Tobirama hides his face in his sleeve. 

“Why would you do that?” he whispers, “Izuna, that was-”

“Reckless, right?” 

“Precisely,” Tobirama hisses, “Not to mention completely unfounded.”

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” Izuna pouts, “You know as well as I do how deeply they care for each other.” 

“That doesn’t mean what you did wasn’t tactless.” 

“What if Madara told you that I was in love with you?” Izuna asks, “Not that I am, but would you take him seriously?” 

A strange, more subtly pained expression falls on Tobirama’s features. “You’re telling me, definitively, that you’re not in love with me, then.”

“Not the point I’m trying to make,” Izuna deflects, “Are you saying Hashirama has some reason to suspect me?”

“Absolutely not-”

“If you do, you’re just as bad as your elders.” 

Tobirama presses the first knuckle of his index finger against the bridge of his nose. He wonders if maybe Madara’s migraines are contagious somehow, or if the steadily mounting tension in the boardroom between elders and delegates and all manner of political niceties had caused a change in the barometric pressure. He pushes warm, dark chakra through his browbone and lets his eyes flutter shut, counting dolphins by tens to drown out Izuna’s taunting. 

In the relative solitude of his own body, Tobirama is acutely aware of the subtle changes to Madara and Hashirama’s respective chakra. There’s an almost uncomfortable warmth to it, tendrils of wine red and earthy violets coiling around each other like helices or the carnage of lysed cells. He groans and decidedly tunes into Izuna’s chakra instead, clear as quartz and humming nervously- though it takes a considerable amount of self control not to devolve into hysterics and ask Izuna what exactly he meant about not being in love with him; if it was a backhanded confession or a thinly veiled insult.

Izuna was unreadable sometimes, but his presence was infinitely comforting, even at the prospect of something like being thrust into an arranged marriage. 

It felt inevitable- Hashirama felt far too deeply for Madara to cooperate, Madara was too fiercely protective of Hashirama to the point of a complex, and as he had recently discovered, Izuna was, for whatever reason, incapable of producing heirs. If the delegation failed, he could at least rely on the familiarity of conflict. The notion of being thrust into a marriage for political purposes so young and so suddenly was distressing even for him in his infinite stoicism. 

He wasn’t sure he could even consider himself stoic anymore; Izuna had tactfully and thoroughly managed to reduce Tobirama in his mannerisms to the child he had always been, summoning sea creatures and dragging ink in intricate animations across the corners of unimportant paperwork. He feels a profound gratitude not only that Izuna exists, but that he does so with Tobirama in mind. 

Speak of the devil, Tobirama is thrust from his solitude with a twitch of Izuna’s finger around his. Madara, speaking for the first time that afternoon, is bellowing at a Senju elder about the propagation of the allegations against the Uchiha that they are somehow more genetically predisposed to evil than other clans, and Hashirama’s hand is locked around his wrist in a vice while the Uzumaki delegation looks on in horror. 

Izuna’s features are pinched in a grimace. 

“I should help him calm down,” he says plainly, “Maybe both of us should.” 

“Anything to get out of here for a while,” Tobirama huffs. He watches with a private, bemused smile as Madara throws a leg over the table as if he means to hurdle across it, his dark eyes burning and his teeth bared in a snarl. 

For as articulate as Tobirama knew he could be, Madara never failed to surprise him with his righteous, unbridled hostility. 

Izuna gets to his feet with a grimace- no doubt his legs had fallen asleep after spending the day kneeling in the boardroom- and takes careful, measured steps to the front of the table, bracing his hands gently at Madara’s shoulders. 

Tobirama clears his throat and follows suit, keeping at Izuna’s heels like a starved dog as he leads Madara out of the boardroom. He bows his head apologetically to the Uzumaki delegation and the Senju elders, making a note to himself that Hashirama looks just as affronted as Madara had, like his chest is tight with the same righteous anger.

Immediately, Madara is babbling to Izuna in their mother tongue as they start down the stairs, his eyes burning and distraught, an unsubtle note of hysteria in his voice that even Tobirama with minimal understanding of their language notices. He suspects Madara’s distress is about more than just the Uzumaki’s microaggressions. 

Outside, Madara drops to the stoop, his armor clattering against his shoulders. Izuna kneels in front of him, his hands braced lightly on his knees as Madara scrambles to light his pipe. Tobirama crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe, fully aware he has no place in consoling Madara. Izuna speaks to his brother in a hushed tone.

“Hu yuhabik. Qult lak dhlk.” 

“La yuhimu,” Madara says quietly, his voice trembling, “‘ant taerif hdha, ‘ant taerif hdha, Izuna.”

Izuna gives Tobirama a pleading look. 

Tobirama raises an eyebrow at him.

“His chest hurts,” Izuna says simply, “I’m still not good with medical chakra, could you…?”

Tobirama waits for an instant, half expecting Madara to whirl around and burn him to ash, but the sad, low slope of his shoulders as he smokes is unmoving. He pushes himself off the doorframe and sinks to his knees beside Madara, his hand hovering between his shoulder blades. 

“Show me where,” Tobirama says, trying to sound as gentle as he possibly can, “I know I’m not Hashirama, but I can help.”

Madara makes a soft, pained sound, and Izuna gives Tobirama an apologetic look before returning his attention to his brother. He takes Madara’s free hand in his, kissing the brusied ridge of his knuckles lightly. 

Carefully, Tobirama lowers his hand against Madara’s back, fighting a grimace as the intensity of Madara’s chakra. It’s clearly steeped in his brothers- in some way, he’s sure it always has been- but it’s as good an indicator as any of what happened between them. Tobirama feels a pang of sympathy for him. Madara leans into his touch easily, and distantly, Tobirama thinks with no small amount of amusement that he’s is a bit like a sated panther in his mannerisms, warm darkness and raw power.

Izuna smiles up at him as he works, his dark eyes half-lidded and appreciative. Tobirama is thankful for the mess of Madara’s hair between them as it hides the flush creeping across his nose quite nicely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i just made you watch madara experience a microaggression and yes im too lazy to translate exactly.........izuna is basically just telling madara "i told you so" and madara is saying that it doesnt matter anyways haha


	12. XII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is short n sweet :) sorry 4 the sporadic updates next friday ill bless yall w some fanart so u can see my headcanons for the founders <3

Madara paces the length of his bedroom wall well into the evening, still burdened with the weight of his armor and the suffocating warmth of his finer clothes. 

He should have forseen something like this; the proposition of a marriage for either himself or Hashirama, the endless, subtly skeptical speculations. Contempt for the Uchiha would have been the same regardless of which clans they'd moved to include in the treatise. Some were simply more overt with their suspicions than others. 

He told Izuna everything. As usual, his younger brother seemed more apt to bear the burdens of his carelessness and passions than he was, and it made Madara feel profoundly guilty, and doubly so for Tobirama, who had been tasked with nursing the ache in his chest. Madara had let him in a gesture of vulnerability, or an act of goodwill beneath the wary gaze of the Uzumaki delegation from the windows at the tower's edge. 

He wanted to rescind it somehow, wanted to erase the memory of his weakness from Tobirama's mind. He wanted to rescind everything he'd ever offered anyone and retreat into himself like the whole of the world’s wilderness was tucked away in the cavern of his chest, ready for him to disappear into. 

It was embarrassing. 

He wonders if maybe under different circumstances he would have been able to steel himself to that nagging need for tenderness- maybe if Izuna had died, if Hashirama hadn’t been able to heal him- had refused to heal him, even- he would have cause to resent the world and all its difficulties, to forsake Hashirama and his childish idealisms and unshakable faith in the forces to be. He would have an adequate excuse to abandon his clansmen and take to the wild to die. 

But, really, such a thing seemed impossible; Hashirama would have sought him out and nursed him back to health even if he’d let himself be whittled down to the marrow of his bones. It was equally reassuring and infuriating, the combination so intoxicating it made Madara’s head spin- but he paced on, Izuna and Tobirama having left begrudgingly for the remainder of the delegation in Madara’s stead, leaving him alone to steep in his fury.

Undoubtedly, Hashirama would be furious with him at his outburst. He couldn't be unconditionally patient, even when it came to Madara, not when his short temper put more than their reputations in jeopardy. What Madara found troubling, however, was that he couldn't accurately predict just how furious Hashirama would be. Perhaps, he thinks hopefully, Hashirama would admonish him gently and then fall into bed at his side, eager and unrepentant and tender and unconcerned with anything but kissing down the length of his throat. Perhaps Hashirama would be furious enough with him that he doesn’t come back at all- that he marries the Uzumaki heiress in the boardroom this evening with a smattering of villagers and delegates as his only witnesses, Izuna biting his tongue beside Tobirama and heartbroken on his behalf.

Madara shakes his head and hopes that he's being unreasonable. 

When Hashirama finds him, he’s half awake at the edge of his bedroll, his sandals abandoned and the restlessness gone from him. 

Somehow, Hashirama manages to look green and flushed all at once. It's a wounded, demure expression that Madara thinks doesn't suit him at all. He exhales shakily as Madara’s bedroom door slides shut behind him, his armor making a soft, rattling sound as his shoulders sag.

The tension in the room is palpable, but Hashirama's chakra is placid as when he sleeps, and the cast of his eyes is plainly guilty. Madara pulls himself into a sitting position, his legs folded loosely beneath him. He clears his throat. 

“Amel eih." 

It's a simple greeting- one Madara is sure Hashirama has heard him use time and time again, but Hashirama says nothing. His shoulders are turned squarely, stubbornly away from Madara, but there's no anger in the low slope of his shoulders, no private fury in the center of his chest- just a dull, poignant sort of sadness. 

Madara clears his throat. “Is everything alright, Hashirama?”

Hashirama sighs deeply and turns his head to the side, hugging his arms tightly against his chest. Madara feels his stomach lurch. He isn't sure if he's going to start crying when Hashirama finally opens up to him again, or if he'll just sit, dumb with shock on the edge of their bed. 

His bed. He isn't really sure anymore. 

“You must be furious with me,” Hashirama says solemnly. 

“Absolutely not," Madara says quickly. He can feel an unfamiliar, despairingly quizzical expression come to his features, and he hates the way his brows draw up tight enough that it aches, hates the way his mouth hangs open.

“I shouldn’t have hesitated to defend you,” Hashirama scoffs, “Sometimes I feel like I’m completely unaware of my own… I don’t know. My privileges. It's-" he draws a breath, "I’m the head of a clan that hasn’t had horrible rumors propagated about them since the beginning of time, and hailed as a prodigy on top of that. It's not the easiest thing for me to understand.”

“You have such a complex about inaction,” Madara says incredulously, “I just- What happened after I left?” 

“I yelled,” Hashirama says tightly, “I cracked the table in the boardroom. I don’t know anything. I’m sure I embarrassed the both of us.” 

Madara grimaces. 

“The delegation will resume tomorrow. Toka, Tobirama, and Hikaku spoke on my behalf and convinced the Uzumaki not to withdraw from for the time being.” 

Slowly, Madara gets to his feet. He closes the distance between them, resting his hands lightly over the top edge of his breastplate as if to unfasten it. Hashirama flinches, almost like he'd been expecting Madara to hit him, and Madara feels something tighten in his stomach. Even if they didn't talk about their fathers now, there was still that sort of strange, residual fear in their reflexes from time to time, the same bleak numbness in the set of their jaws as they braced for blows during spars that seemed to rear its head at the most inopportune of times. 

"It's just me," Madara says quietly. "I don't want you coming to bed tense." 

Hashirama smiles lightly at that, uncrossing his arms and bringing his hands to rest at Madara’s wrists. The same strange, indescribable electricity of the morning is buzzing in his fingertips, and he watches with a private sort of hunger as Madara sets about unfastening his armor. 

“I want to get used to this,” Hashirama mutters. Madara scoffs, an iota of tension loosing from his chest. 

“Me, undressing you?” 

“Yeah,” Hashirama says plainly, “It’s comforting.” 

Madara hums and lifts a plate of armor from Hashirama’s shoulder, pausing to press a kiss to his collarbone through the fabric of his tunic. He takes a painfully long time undressing him, running the pads of his thumbs over Hashirama’s ribs, down the curve of his stomach, over the high ridges of his hips. Hashirama shudders. He's unbelievably self-conscious about the whole thing, suddenly acutely aware of his inexperience and the hot embarrassment with which his nerves are alight- but Madara's chakra, dark as it is, has a uniquely, comforting quality about it. He closes his eyes and searches for it, desperately, as he's undressed. 

His breastplate is still in place when he leans forward and kisses Madara, and his dark, scarred hands falter at the clasps of his armor.

“I wish I had some eloquent way to tell you how much I admire you," Hashirama says, his voice still slightly strained, "All of you. Everything. Your patience, your intelligence, your generosity- all of you." 

Madara makes a soft, contented sound as Hashirama's lips find the curve of his jaw, rolling his head to the side. "When introducing me to delegations from now on, just say I'm exhausted and mean." 

“You're exhausted?" Hashirama teases, "I shouldn’t burden you with my insecurities, then? I shouldn't grovel and ask if you want this to continue?" 

Madara scoffs, resting his head against Hashirama's as he kisses down his neck. It's exhilarating, profoundly comforting, almost like he's being anointed with oil and absolved of all his trespasses in the midst of a lightning storm. “If I had it my way, you’d never be rid of me again. Is that a satisfactory answer?”

“You have a way of making things uncomplicated that I find endlessly, endlessly endearing,” Hashirama murmurs. 

With the last plate of his armor abandoned on the floor, Hashirama braces his hand against Madara's chest and kisses him again, passing him in an easy movement to lie on his back on their bed- Madara's bed? He isn't quite sure anymore, but Madara makes astonishingly quick work of his armor, cursing beneath his breath in his mother tongue, and Hashirama breathes a sigh of relief. The tension in the room had broken, unceremoniously- a small part of him recognized they were in an interim of sorts. Inevitably, the tension would mount again, but perhaps be resolved this time with his naked chest pressed against Madara's.

“Just the other day you said I was too cryptic,” Madara breathes, collapsing into bed beside him and throwing a leg over his hips,“Make up your mind.” 

“You’re both. You’re everything.”

Madara pulls Hashirama in for another, fiercer kiss, his hands finding their way to the roots of his hair. Hashirama is smiling against his lips, and Madara can't help but to laugh once, giddily, almost hysterically. 

Silently, Hashirama wonders when the change began- if there was ever a time when he didn’t spend the better portion of his waking hours lost in dreams of Madara, he couldn’t remember, but they had become clearer and clearer with each passing day. Maybe he’d just never considered the possibility of having Madara as a lover because the possibility of having Madara at all felt improbable. He had always been a comparatively wild thing by his very nature- where Hashirama was disciplined, Madara was tactless and sure. Where Hashirama was uncertain, Madara was furious and active. He was still very much the ambitious, compassionate boy Hashirama thinks he fell in love with on the riverbank all those years ago.

Even now, tugging insistently at his hair, there’s a unique gentleness that he belies, a patience that simmers beneath the surface of his righteous fury. Hashirama tugs at the hem of his tunic gently, and Madara's breath hitches against his lips. 

“I adore you,” Hashirama says softly, “Difficult as you are.”

“Just say that I’m selfish,” Madara says, rolling his eyes, “I needed you closer. Can you blame me?”

“No. I needed you, too. I still do. I think I always will.” 

“I’m glad to hear that,” Madara murmurs. He lets his eyes slide shut as Hashirama’s hand trails up beneath the hem of his shirt, reveling in the demanding warmth of his fingertips.

“Everything feels charged now, doesn’t it?” Hashirama asks, pressing a kiss against the center of his chest. Madara shudders and hums in agreement. “More than usual, anyways,” Hashirama continues, “warmer.”

Madara drags a hand through Hashirama’s hair, pulling it to one side of his face. 

Hashirama rests his chin atop his sternum and smiles gently at him, his hand lingering just below his last rib against his bare skin. The moonlight gives his dark skin a bluish tint, casting violet light across the curtain of his hair, and his body yields against Madara's.

“I’ve never done anything like this,” Madara admits. 

“Me neither. I think it’s an intuitive thing.” 

With a soft sound, Hashirama pulls himself up so he straddles Madara’s waist, his forearms braced on either side of his head. There’s an unmistakably desperate gleam in his eyes, and Madara wants nothing more than to kiss him until it flickers away- but morning is an uncertain thing with the delegation at hand, and Madara understands that. He catches the ends of Hashirama’s hair between his fingers, trailing kisses up its dark length until his lips come to rest against his jaw. 

“I trust that you’ll take me through it,” Madara murmurs, “That you’re just as wild about me as I am about you.”

“Absolutely,” Hashirama laughs, turning his head to press his nose against Madara’s temple, “I adore you, wild thing.” 

Madara tosses his head to the side and covers his mouth, a sound tearing from his throat that's something like a laugh and something like a groan. When Hashirama leans down to kiss the flush that blossoms just below the corners of his dark eyes, Madara bats at him like a cat, and the fullness of Hashirama's laugh raises the temperature in the room a degree or two.

Not long into the evening, Madara, breathless, pries Hashirama’s hands from his naked hips. Hashirama relents immediately, pushing himself up onto his elbows to hold Madara's hair out of his eyes. 

“Are you alright?” 

“I can’t,” Madara says, simple and hoarse, “Not yet. I’m sorry.”

There’s an instant of unspoken understanding, and Hashirama smiles gently, his tone low and cautious. “I’ll get dressed again. I can leave, if you need me to.” 

Madara shakes his head. "Don't be stupid." 

When Hashirama, trying to soothe him, drags his hands up his sides, Madara makes a sound like the trauma of the last decade has been wrung from him at last, and the arch of his back collapses against the bed. Hashirama makes a soft, reassuring sound, a hair’s breadth from a coo, and kisses the center of his chest. 

“I know we don’t exactly have all the time in the world,” Madara says quietly, “I just- can’t. I can’t.” 

“No, no,” Hashirama murmurs, unconcerned, “I’ll find away to make time enough for us that you’ll grow sick and tired of me, no matter what happens.”

The laugh that rips from Madara’s throat is dry, almost hysterical, but he knows, deeply, that Hashirama means every word. 

Hashirama watches his features pass from sourness to horror to profound sadness, a coil tightening in his chest as his face changes. He reaches behind Madara’s shoulders to pull his hair from underneath him, fanning it across his pillow and splaying his fingers along the length of a half finished braid. Madara screws his eyes shut, growing tense again.

“This feels like a fucking nightmare,” he says plainly. Hashirama frowns, understanding. 

“It’s not you,” Madara clarifies, “It’s the feeling of standing at a precipice. Even if you’re gripping my shoulders to keep me from falling, there’s something terrifying about it.” 

Hashirama nods. “You don’t have to be terrified alone,” he offers, “I’m terrified, too, but my faith in you has always been unwavering, even during the worst of times.”

“That’s not enough to sustain you,” Madara says quietly. He brings his hand up to Hashirama’s hair, twisting it around his fingers loosely. He turns his head to the side, and Hashirama studies his pained expression in the silvery light of the evening. 

“It is,” he insists, “If I'm enough for you, in all my inaction and all of my sonority, the thought of you alone is enough for me.” 

Madara doesn’t say anything. Hashirama thinks he’s very near crying, if the way his breath stutters in his chest is any indication. He leans down and presses a kiss to Madara’s temple, pushing every concern about the delegation from his mind.

“I’m not going to marry her,” he says sternly, “Neither are you. Neither are Tobirama or Izuna. I’m asking you to extend your faith to me.” 

“I don’t know if I have much left to give,” Madara says humorlessly. His hands find their way to Hashirama’s, using them as leverage to pull Hashirama down on top of him. He wraps his arms around Hashirama’s shoulders to press his weight against his chest, sighing heavily. Hashirama rests his chin against Madara’s clavicle. 

“I’ll take whatever you have left, and find a way to grow it.”

Hashirama watches an idealism die on Madara's tongue, and for a moment, he expects him to propose they close the delegation and spend the rest of the foreseeable future lying silently in bed together- but Madara’s sense of duty outweighs his self-interest, and it’s frustrating and touching and Hashirama wants to scream on his behalf. 

“Did you cry when Izuna got hurt?” 

Madara flinches. 

“I’m asking because I want to know how long you’ve kept all your anger bottled up like this.” 

“It’s fear. It’s not anger at all. You know that. You should know that.”

Hashirama makes a soft noise of assent and rolls onto his side, patting the center of his chest in an invitation. Silently, after a moment, Madara shifts so his nose is tucked against his throat. 

“I don’t think I can do much more than just lie here for a while,” Madara mutters. 

“That’s alright,” Hashirama says. “I’ll lie here too, and enjoy your presence as long as you’ll have me.”

With a last, exasperated sigh, Madara lets himself relax against his chest. 

For the longest time, Madara had convinced himself that being with Hashirama this would immediately and irreversibly absolve him of the weight in his chest. He learns, very quickly, that sometimes the weight is present as ever, and other times it’s like it never existed at all, and that there are very few days between extremes, but that there are fewer days still without Hashirama and the welcome comfort of his presence in Madara’s bed- their bed? He isn't really sure.


	13. XIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> accidentally took a monthlong hiatus and never drew fanart. oh well! 
> 
> that being said im going to see this story through to the end, i really love writing it, but university, family, and financial woes will always take precedence over fic writing.
> 
> want 2 dedicate this chapter in particular to tumblr user rnyfh!!!!!!!! whose kindness and care encouraged me this past month to keep working on this fic, im so glad you like it, and also to everyone whose read so far and puts up with such inconsistent updates, mashallah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!<3 
> 
> hopefully as the semester winds down ill have time to go back and so some revision work for syntax, grammar, format, etc.- as well as language consistency since i realized ive been using arabic and japanese terms interchangeably. anyways enjoy thx for patience ;)

Izuna’s thumbs are soft against the curve of his jaw, rolling dark oil in slick, careful lines up the side of his face. Beside them, Kagami’s thin, deft fingers are occupied with small glass beads and copper wire, winding intricate patterns in a yardlong scrap of velvet. 

“It’s a tapestry,” Kagami had explained earlier, picking at a dense coil of hair at his temple, “To celebrate the coming of spring.” 

It had been the third day of the delegation, and Kagami had come to the boardroom with Naori, deposited himself between Tobirama and Izuna as if he were trying to diffuse the mounting tension between them. Tobirama was increasingly on edge about the notion of a marriage contract, and Izuna had become increasingly cryptic in his speech and mannerism, casting Tobirama sly, sad looks whenever there were lulls in the conversation. 

If anybody from the founding families was to be married into the Uzumaki clan, it would have to be him, Tobirama reasoned- Izuna was incapable of producing heirs, the Uzumaki clan head had deemed Madara an unacceptable candidate for marriage, and Hashirama pointedly changed the subject when the power-hungry eyes of the Uzumaki were turned upon him. Fortunately, the delegation had come to an end late that afternoon, with Hashirama promising to treat the Uzumaki delegation to dinner in the village common, where a large handful of civilians had opened restaurants in wooden booths and small, scarcely stocked boutiques in neat rows. Naori had dismissed Kagami to Izuna and Tobirama’s care, promising them new watercolors and rabbit furs in return for their services as glorified babysitters. 

It wasn’t that Kagami was a particularly troublesome child- rather, he was just young, still prone to tantrums despite his careful, patient devotion to beadwork and painting. Tobirama was always surprised by how capable Kagami was; the younger boy often painted simple portraits in black ink and left Izuna, who was comparatively sloppy in his artistic practice, to color them. It was not unusual for the Senju to leave Naori’s comfortable, modest home with a caricature of some delegate or civilian folded beneath his arm. He tacked them in a modest gallery against his bedroom wall, and kept two small portraits on wooden panels of himself and Izuna propped against the wall by his bedroll. 

Tonight Izuna had solemnly lit candles, most of them in a small cluster in the corner where Kagami sat working, and drawn a small tin of facepaints from the chest of art supplies against the front window. Tobirama had shrugged out of his armor and splayed the top half of his tunic open, stretching it over his shoulders as Izuna insisted he wanted to use his chest as a canvas, had insisted that face painting was an intimate, meditative practice. Tobirama kept his eyes close to better concentrate on the sensation of Izuna’s delicate fingers painting thin lines across his face. 

The candles dwindle for an hour or so, and Izuna trades his fingertips for fine paintbrushes just after the sun sets. Tobirama clears his throat. 

“Hi,” Izuna says gently, “Are you okay? Does it itch?”

“I’m fine,” Tobirama reassures. He can feel Kagami’s eyes on them. “I just wanted to know what you were painting on me.” 

Izuna laughs, and it’s a light enough sound to make Tobirama feel like some invisible weight has been lifted from his shoulders. He fights the urge to collapse forward against his chest and ruin the hour of his hard work, to ruin the relatively cool facade he’s maintained the past few months. Izuna touches his top lip lightly, and with his eyes still shut and his other senses heightened, Tobirama feels like he’s been struck by lightning from an instant. 

“Just patterns,” Izuna says, “Really detailed ones. If you like the way it looks, we can try to simplify it and you can wear it every day.” 

“Do they mean anything?” Tobirama asks. Izuna makes a soft, noncommittal sound.

“Not really.” 

Tobirama hums contentedly and lets Izuna return to his work, listening intently to the click of Kagami’s needle against his fingernails as he works. 

It feels domestic. It feels correct. It feels like home. 

When Izuna finishes, he tucks his paintbrush behind his ear and lifts his hands to frame Tobirama’s face, tilting his head gently to the side. He speaks so softly that Tobirama feels he might melt into a puddle on Naori’s floor like a snowdrift beneath a sunbeam. “Have you fallen asleep?” Izuna asks playfully, “Sitting up, too, like a horse.” 

“I’m wide awake,” Tobirama assures him, opening his eyes slowly against the low, oppressive light of the candles. Izuna is smiling at him, a line of red paint swept across his pillowy upper lip and onto the plane of his cheek. Tobirama fights the urge to lick his thumb and wipe it away. He lets himself pretend that it’s a line of makeup he’d kissed away himself, and that Izuna would want to keep it as a reminder. 

Tobirama rubs his chest with his knuckles to draw the fluttery sensation from it. There are three sets of four dots arranged in a diamond pattern beneath each eye and his lower lip, done purposefully in red ink, and Tobirama thinks the markings look vaguely familiar. 

“Do you want to see?” Kagami asks from the corner, smiling brightly, needle still and poised between his first two fingers. Izuna gives him a devious look.

“Of course he wants to see,” Izuna scoffs, looking pointedly at Tobirama, “He loves art.”

Kagami sets his beadwork aside carefully, getting to his feet with a soft groan to retrieve Naori’s hand mirror from her bedroom. Izuna smoothes his hand along Tobirama’s jaw, admiring his work, and Tobirama screws his eyes shut again to avoid his unreadable, smoldering gaze. 

Ever since Izuna’s offhand comment about being decidedly not in love with Tobirama, he had anticipated a sort of bitter, awkward tension between the two of them, rather than the same easy tenderness he’d become accustomed to. If it were possible, Izuna had become even harder to read than when they’d first met; dismissive and coy but gentle and kind all the same. It was maddening. Even if Tobirama grew used to it, it was maddening. He wondered if this is how Hashirama felt about Madara, but Madara had always been at least consistent in his caginess, and the two of them seemed to share the same sort of troubled understanding for each other, that same fierce, stubborn devotion to their dream. 

Izuna is beautiful, and unbelievably kind- but it’s a kindness lacking, to Tobirama, in any sort of context or authentication. There is no conceivable reason for him to love Tobirama like Hashirama and Madara love each other. 

When Kagami returns with the mirror, Izuna takes it from him eagerly. The smaller boy presses himself against Izuna’s side, his eyes knowing and bright with anticipation. Izuna turns the mirror upon him, and Tobirama studies his reflection intently. 

Beneath both of his eyes and his bottom lip, Izuna has drawn neat, intricate geometric patterns in red paint. The shapes compliment the diamonds Izuna had drawn on his own face, though in a purely visual way that Tobirama can’t quite understand. He opens and closes his mouth, turning his head to the side to scan down the line of paint beneath his left eye that runs down to the curve of his jaw. 

“Do you like it?” Kagami asks, smiling wryly. Izuna is watching him with bated breath- Tobirama swears he can see his sharingan whirl halfway into focus, hanging lazily between black and red. 

“It’s-” he swallows thickly, running the tip of his index finger along Izuna’s work, “It’s beautiful.” 

“You’ll wear it, then?”

Tobirama nods. “As long as it’ll stay on.” 

“The pigment is semi permanent,” Kagami chimes in, unusually talkative and knowing, “It’ll keep for a few weeks unless you put oil on it.” 

Without warning, Izuna dives forward and throws his arms around Tobirama’s shoulders, knocking the wind out of him in the process. Tobirama huffs once and pats his back lightly, pointedly aware of the softness of Izuna’s hair against the side of his hand. 

“I’m glad you like it,” Izuna says quietly, squeezing his shoulders. 

“I like just about everything you do,” Tobirama mutters, “You don’t know the half of it.” 

Over Izuna’s shoulder, Kagami makes a disgusted expression and jabs his finger down his throat like he’s going to gag. 

“It shouldn’t have to be Tobirama.” 

Madara lifts his head slightly. He’s resting against the far wall of the boardroom with Hashirama, two mugs of bitter tea steaming on the newly finished windowsill between them. Though they’d had more than their fair share of tender, sacred moments the past few nights, sleep took precedence, and talk of the delegation felt unimportant compared to the closeness of their bodies in Madara’s bed. 

Below them, citizens are milling about towards the common beneath the rising sun, and the distant sounds of construction at the village’s far edge are still quieter than birdsong. Hashirama’s hair looks drier than usual, his dark skin lifeless looking and dull beneath his eyes. Madara imagines he hasn’t fared much better- but they ought to be celebrating. They shouldn’t be caught in a delegation with a small clan from the country’s edge, trying fruitlessly to negotiate themselves and their brothers out of a marriage contract.

That being said, Uzumaki Mito was dutiful, kind, and equally unenthusiastic. Distantly, Madara thinks they may have become friends under different circumstances, hopes that perhaps they still may, but he’s decided he is once again entitled to hopelessness until the storm of botched diplomacy has come to pass, and he’s alone in Hashirama’s arms again indefinitely. 

Hashirama had been uncharacteristically quiet about the whole ordeal, and Madara wondered if maybe one of these nights he was bound to collapse in on himself like a bright, dying star, throw one of his tantrums or lay waste to the village. He almost seemed more distraught at the prospect of burdening his only brother with an arranged marriage than he did at bearing the responsibility himself, and felt almost doubly guilty at saddling either Madara or Izuna with it- that much was obvious. Madara only wished he had enough energy to console him. 

“I know it can’t be Izuna,” Hashirama continues, cradling his chin in his palm, “And I don’t want it to be you, and you don’t want it to be me.” 

“I don’t exactly want it to be Tobirama, either,” Madara says, not unkindly, “I think Izuna would be devastated, but besides that I don’t particularly like marriage contracts. They’re exploitative.”

“She’s beautiful,” Hashirama says suddenly, his voice uncharacteristically sour and tight, and he quickly amends,“she’s not you, but she seems kind enough, and if this isn’t what she wants, either, there should be no reason for her father to subject her to it.” 

Madara shrugs, turning in place so he’s close enough to press his arm against Hashirama’s chest. He looks out the window with distantly familiar scorn- it’s not the village’s fault. It’s not their fault. Really, it’s the backwards traditions their fathers and elders upheld and uphold, and Madara feels a hopeless, floundering sense that there’s nothing either of them can do to change them but wait. 

“It always surprises people to learn that the Uchiha have never been in the business of arranged marriages,” Madara murmurs, trying subtly to change the subject, “Ghabi.”

After a moment’s pause, Hashirama reaches up and drapes his arm around Madara’s shoulders, drawing him close to kiss the side of his head. Madara lets his eyes slip shut, mindful of the foreign chakra swimming around the air around them. 

“When, or if this blows over, what do you think will become of us?” 

“I’d like to stay together,” Madara says plainly, “Do good work, retire early. Take care of the children in our clans. Mostly I’d like to rest.” 

Hashirama laughs weakly. 

“Our dreams align perfectly, like always.” 

At the first floor of the tower, there’s the sound of a door creaking open and the bright, airy sound of Uzumaki dialect travelling up the stairs like smoke. Hashirama presses an urgent and lingering kiss against the corner of Madara’s mouth, and says uncertainly, “Tuhalu bialsabr maei”. 

Be patient with me. 

Madara smiles and returns the kiss, though keeps his hands folded against his chest- otherwise, they’d find their way to the freshly tangled length of Hashirama’s hair to pull it straight again, and the delegation would come to an abrupt end. Maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but Hashirama has made it a point to remind them that without the treatise, the lives of their own clansmen as well as the Uzumaki would be put in jeopardy, and Madara is particularly eager about developing a political system bereft of child soldiers and sacrifices, so he minds his manners in the delegation now. 

The Uzumaki clan head is eager to see Hashirama as always, remarking for perhaps the tenth time that week that he looks absolutely nothing like Butsuma. 

Butsuma- may God keep him, Madara thinks sourly. 

It’s difficult to ignore the way Hashirama’s shoulders jerk at the mention of his father’s name, but Madara slides into his seat at the head of the boardroom table, a place away from the Uzumaki clan head, and two places from his daughter, who he’d likely started bringing to the delegation as a means of enticing them into a marriage contract.   
She was beautiful- Madara was not so set in his tastes that he couldn’t admire the dark, olive brown of her skin and the way her reddish hair curled up against her temples, the delicate slope of her shoulders and the tired, subtly defiant slant of her eyes- but she was not Hashirama. 

She folds her hands atop the table as Hikaku makes his entrance, tea kettle in hand and ceramic cups tucked precariously between his arm and his chest. Her eyes are set on Madara, and her expression, usually unreadable, is strangely apologetic, knowing and sad in a way that reminds him of Azami. When Hikaku brushes past Madara, he rests a hand over his purposefully. Madara raises his head in acknowledgement and turns his hand so Hikaku’s fingers rest against his palm. 

“Naori will bring the younger boys again,” he says quietly, passing Madara his second cup of tea that morning, “Though Izuna’s caused some spectacle and barricaded himself in the bathroom with Tobirama over getting into her makeup bag last night, and Kagami looks like the cat who got the cream- you know, like he has a secret to tell her but won’t.” 

“You saw them this morning?” Madara asks, lowering his voice. 

“I stopped by. Izuna and Tobirama were in the bathroom, and Kagami was working diligently as usual while she berated the three of them.” 

“Perhaps I shouldn’t leave Izuna there unsupervised,” Madara huffs. Hikaku laughs quietly, patting his palm. 

“He’s bright in the way the two of you were when Tajima wasn’t around,” Hikaku murmurs, “He’s healthy, and Tobirama and Kagami are available and willing to care for him. When he needs you-” he squeezes his hand, “And he will, he’ll seek you out. He knows how much you love him.” 

Downstairs, the door swings open again, and Madara can make out Naori and Toka barking over each other. Hikaku, still travel-weary and uncertain about the situation between the two founders of the village, smiles to himself- Toka was a surprisingly pleasant companion in travel and diplomacy, and having her present at the delegation (and at his side, frankly) was a welcome comfort in such a volatile time. 

“Kama yaelam,” Hikaku nods at Hashirama and gives Madara’s hand a last, reassuring squeeze, “But forgive me if I’ve misread something.” 

Madara dismisses him, not unkindly, with a wave. 

He can feel Mito’s eyes on him- icy green and searching, but he busies himself with his second cup of tea and the small stack of paperwork beside him, skimming the paper’s edge with the pad of his thumb. Maybe, he thinks wistfully, if he gives himself a bad enough papercut, Hashirama would bring the delegation to a halt and kiss him better, sending the Uzumaki delegates back scowling into the countryside- but Hashirama, for all his belligerence, is still above such nonsense as that. 

The boardroom door swings open, and when Madara turns around and sees Izuna and Tobirama with ink dried on their faces in the patterns of old Uchiha wedding customs, he chokes so violently on his tea that Hashirama abandons the head of the table and drops to his knees beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISE THEYRE NOT ACTUALLY MARRIED SCREAMMM youll see dont come 4 me
> 
> ( translation notes hikaku is just telling madara that hashirama knows he loves him, and in case u missed the first translation hashirama is asking madara to be patient <3)


	14. XIV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now with fanart! (by me lol)  
https://mintellectual.tumblr.com/post/188640353448/im-not-as-strong-as-i-was-way-back-thenso-im  
so happy for the support i have received on this fic. planning to go back this week and make all of the cultural/linguistic details consistent. ive really been winging it all this time hahah!!!   
i dont imagine ill have more than a few updates on this one, but i have some other fics in the works.........school has taken so much out of me but i really enjoy using this story as opportunity to practice my writing, so im glad you all enjoy it <3
> 
> lazy arabic translations at the end!

Needless to say, the delegation gets derailed. 

After Hashirama helps him to lower his blood pressure, at least minutely, Madara jumps from his seat and drags Izuna from the boardroom by the lobe of his ear. Tobirama watches from Hashirama’s shoulder as the younger boy goes smiling, shrugging as if to say, “well, what can you do, really”? 

In their wake, Hashirama is giving him a particularly sour look, like he should have known better. The Uzumaki are talking amongst themselves, either unaware of or unconcerned with Madara’s earlier outburst- though most likely they were accustomed to him by now, in reputation and intimacy, and Tobirama wondered bitterly if they understood just how righteous the man was in his anger at everything. The world had failed the Uchiha in more ways than any of them could imagine. Even if the clan sat upon a small fortune of their own, they were subject to unimaginable acts of violence, the erasure of their culture and language, and decimation of their graves for their kekkai genkai so thorough that they had been forced to develop funeral practices that left their dead scattered to the wind. 

He wondered, too, when he’d come to understand Madara's anger himself. Hashirama had been insisting, for years, that the Uchiha were wrongfully persecuted, that they were owed the lump sum of whatever reparations, financial or otherwise, became available during peacetime. Tobirama had always stubbornly indulged his brother’s idealism, not particularly interested in the fate of the Uchiha either way, but living in such close, comfortable proximity to them- to Izuna- for so long now had drastically changed his perspective on the issue. The Uchiha were ferocious and proud, sure, perhaps even more so than was propagated by outsiders, but they were, by and large, uncompromisingly generous and kind, creative and clever in a way Tobirama never would have anticipated. He felt deeply guilty for ever thinking otherwise. 

That being said, with his closeness with Izuna- who was arguably the craftiest of his living clansmen- and his interest in Uchiha traditions, he should have at least been peripherally aware of what Izuna was doing in painting his face.

He’d recognized the patterns Izuna had drawn on as looking similar to Tajima 's, though the man’s face had been decorated with tattoos last Tobirama saw him, and he assumed the markings were only superficially significant, maybe a symbol of strength or a gesture of goodwill from another clansmen, some lines from Azami drawn and tattooed on in their youths. When Izuna woke him up before dawn and ushered him into the bathroom, at the sound of Naori’s footfalls down the hallway, explaining hastily that he’d drawn markings on the both of them that were part of an antiquated marriage tradition, he supposed he shouldn’t have been so surprised- but it was doubly surprising that Izuna had drawn them after insisting, explicitly and publicly, that he was not in love with Tobirama.

He tried not to think too hard about it.

Izuna had insisted it was nothing more than a way to remove them from consideration in the marriage contract with the Uzumaki. Tobirama wasn’t so sure. Frankly, he wasn't sure about anything anymore. 

He takes his place beside Hashirama as the delegates and elders settle into their seats. For the past few sessions of delegation, the marriage contract had become secondarily important to the hypothetical changes that would need to be made of the village’s residential development in accommodating more clans, as the Uzumaki had promised to invite the Nara and Akimichi clans to join the village if the terms of their armistice were accepted.

“Sweetening the pot,” Izuna had muttered the day before, earning both of them a look of admonishment from the Senju elder across the table from them. 

But the delegation was in its last days. No proverbial stone had been left upturned but the marriage contract.

Hashirama rests a gentle against the underside of his arm, his body close and suffocatingly warm. He looks less sour now, more concerned, like some latent parental instinct had stirred in his chest with the tension in the air momentarily diffused. 

“Is everything alright, Tobirama?”

“I think Izuna and I are married,” Tobirama says flatly. Hashirama’s eye twitches, and his chakra flickers desparingly for just an instant, but he gives a placid nod and sits back slightly. 

“Ah,” Hashirama says hoarsely, “Ah, that’s-”

“It wasn’t meant to be spiteful towards you,” Tobirama says quickly, “I... I know that there’s something that’s happened between you and Madara, and that under normal circumstances it would probably mean-”

Hashirama touches his hand gently, and for some reason the gesture strikes Tobirama as profoundly sad. He rests his hand atop his brother’s, squeezing lightly. 

“Anija, you love him,” Tobirama says quietly, well beneath the comparative roar of the Uzumakis’ laughter, “The universe will do its job. I’m sorry to have put you in this position.” 

Hashirama nods solemnly. 

“They know Madara and I aren’t going to be persuaded into a contract that this point, but they don’t yet know what the two of you have done either,” Hashirama says, “We have plenty of cousins, as does Madara, but the stakes are high- if the terms of the armistice aren’t met, they’ll retaliate, and now we understand that they’ve allied themselves with the Nara and Akimichi, at least tentatively, which means-”

“We'd make easy work of all of them,” Tobirama assures him. 

Hashirama’s nostrils flare, and he presses the heel of his free hand against his forehead, closing his eyes tightly. 

“I’m not worried about the village,” he says pointently, quietly, “I’m worried about perpetuating the cycle of war, about child casualties, about civilian casualties, about the very notion of a system where villages and clans have to rely on military might to protect them, where there's protecting that has to be done at all-” he swallows thickly, squeezing Tobirama’s hand, “There’s a lot our fathers never stopped to consider. That’s why this armistice is important. If you’re ineligible for the contract because you’re… married to Izuna, the responsibility will fall to one of us. Probably me.” 

“It doesn’t have to,” Tobirama mutters. 

“But it will,” Hashirama sighs, “I don’t want it to. It's the last thing I want, and not just for my sake or Madara's. I don't want to see Mito stripped of her agency for the purpose of a political alliance.”

The boardroom is abuzz with chatter now, and Tobirama is surprised to see a small circle of elders from both the Senju and Uchiha clans speaking amicably, the Uchiha stressing the pronunciation of certain words and sharing warm, loaded, almost fond looks with each other when their language is butchered despite the Senjus’ best efforts. The Uzumaki have sequestered themselves in the far corner of the room as usual, wary or indifferent of the Uchiha's antics. 

Hashirama squeezes Tobirama’s hand tightly. 

“What do you want, anija?” 

“Some peace and quiet,” Hashirama says, his voice hoarse and barely more than a whisper, “Just a moment of reprieve. We’ve spent our entire lives at war already.” 

“Yeah,” Tobirama says flatly, “Yeah. I know.” 

Hashirama leans over enough to rest his head on Tobirama’s shoulder. He doesn’t move until the delegation has settled into their seats around them and the day has broken over the ragged peaks of the distant mountains. 

“I’m sorry,” Izuna says again. His hands are wrapped tightly around Madara’s, the two of them sequestered in an empty corner of the administrative building in what will probably become part of the finished village archives, richly carpeted and furnished but bereft of books and scrolls. 

He’s sorry- he means it; Madara is seething, more despairing than anything, more wounded than angry. 

“I didn’t mean it as a slight to you,” he insists. Madara crinkles his nose like he’s about to start crying, the scarlet glow of his sharingan casting bright shadows against his cheekbones. “I wasn’t thinking. I just didn’t want to see Tobirama get married off-”

Madara glares at him. “As if Hashirama or I wouldn’t be put-”

“I just assumed you wouldn’t agree to the armistice. I wasn’t thinking about civilian casualties or politics or any of that. I was just thinking about you, because I love you, and I love Hashirama and I love-” Izuna sucks his teeth. 

He figures if he doesn’t say it aloud to anybody other than sweet, quiet Kagami, he’ll never really have to confront the nature of his feelings for Tobirama Tobirama- that Tobirama might reciprocate, might become something his family or their enemies could use as leverage against him, might leave Izuna alone, vulnerable, and hurt when he inevitably grew tired of him. 

Though given that they were technically engaged now, he suspected he would finally have to answer to some greater authority than Kagami and his beadwork.

“I love you. I love you, Madara. I’d never hurt you on purpose.” 

Madara says nothing, but he holds Izuna’s hands tightly. He rolls his neck so the crown of his head falls against the wall, exhaling sharply. Izuna squeezes his hands apologetically once, and Madara withdraws with such resignation that Izuna feels his stomach lurch. 

No, Madara had never really been one to wear his heart on his sleeve- but he was compassionate and kind, unconditionally so with Izuna, keeping him fed on extra rations and safe from their father whenever possible, kept him in warm furs and stolen him small jars of pigment from wealthier clans as they traveled. 

That didn't mean Madara would never get angry at him. Izuna suspected that at some point, everybody he became close with would.

Instinctively, he braces himself for a slap, but Madara’s folded an arm securely beneath his ribs, his free hand roaming the exposed length of his throat. Izuna frowns.

“Ani-”

“Hadha yakfi,” Madara hisses, “‘iinaa sahi. Don’t start.” 

Izuna frowns. Madara exhales harshly, his hand coming to rest at the base of his throat, where even in the low light Izuna can see a dark, angry flush spreading up from his chest.

“Let me see,” Izuna says gently, “Is this about your chest hurting?”

Madara gives a last, mighty sigh, and sinks to his haunches against the wall, folding both arms against his stomach. Izuna follows him to the floor, immediately bracing a hand against his chest. 

In their spare time- between marriage rites and gossiping, anyways- Tobirama had started to teach him basic applications of medical jutsu, more for the purpose of scanning for internal injuries than diagnosing or treating them. Izuna had practiced by trying to find the foreign objects left in Tobirama’s body from wartime: the long, flat edge of a flint arrow in the side of his thigh, the splotch of ink he’d spilled onto an open wound on the back of his hand, the length of sharp wire over the arc of his hip. They were easy to find, but Izuna took his time scanning Tobirama’s exposed skin, and hated himself for it a little more with each wasted minute. 

Madara exhales again, and Izuna can feel loose, dead tissue rattling in his chest. He flinches.

There’s a gentle green flash of light as Izuna pushes chakra through his brother’s chest, and it takes him just under a minute to map the extent of his injuries- if they can even be called that. There’s a mass of dead tissue in one of the hollow chambers of his lungs, raised burn scars winding up the length of his throat, surrounded by angry, inflamed muscle. 

When Izuna withdraws, Madara’s eyes are downcast.

“Oh,” Izuna says softly, moving closer to do a second, recursive scan of his chest. Madara huffs. 

If the Uchiha had ever bothered to keep medical records, Izuna thinks this may have been a textbook case of- well, whatever it was that tended to afflict them. It wasn’t a disease, per se, rather, a set of complications from overuse of katon jutsu. It had troubled Azami when she was alive, and Akira too, and Izuna distantly remembers that the symptoms are specific to the respiratory system, remembers sleeping tucked against his mother’s stomach when she lay nursing inflamed sinuses and dry coughs-

He quickly pushes the memory from his mind. That wasn’t how Azami had died. That wasn’t how Akira had died, either. 

But there was still that resonant guilt somewhere in his chest- Azami slowed down considerably in the last years of her life, and Akira had spent his short, miserable life as a means for Tajima to gauge his capacity for violence. Even still, it wasn’t uncommon for infections to spread to other parts of the body, for lungs to collapse or fill with fluid in the winters and springs, for young bodies to be needlessly thrown into pyres for lack of proper medical resources. 

Even now, Madara is clutching loosely at his sides, and his breathing is labored. Izuna wonders how he didn’t notice sooner, how Hashirama didn’t notice sooner and hole up with Madara in his bedroom until he could muster the chakra to grow him a new set of lungs made from some indestructible application of the moukuton. 

“Madara,” Izuna says hoarsely, “Madara, how long have you known this?” 

“I don’t know,” Madara murmurs, “It’s only bothered me the past week or so.” 

“Does Hashirama know?” 

“He hasn’t said anything.”

“Hara,” Izuna snaps, “Hara, Madara. Don’t lie to me.”

“He would have come to you about it. Or he would have told Tobirama. He’s only acting strangely because of the marriage contract.”

“He’s acting strangely because he loves you.”

“That’s a strong word. I think he likes how I look.”

Izuna feels his stomach lurch. He doesn’t know Hashirama terribly well yet, he supposes, but he suspects that he isn’t half as shallow as Madara makes him out to be when his moods turn foul. If he were, Madara would treat him with indifference, not reverence. He sets his jaw. Madara is beautiful, sure. Madara is more than just beautiful. Madara deserves to be loved, but not because he's beautiful. 

“You don’t mean that. You’re being difficult.”

“Maybe,” Madara mutters, “It hurts. I don’t think Tobirama noticed when he tried to heal me the other day.”

“He probably did, but I doubt he thought anything of it. All of us have some injuries from the wartime.”

Madara hums softly. Izuna studies his features- he looks tired, the deep, brown shadows beneath his eyes darker than usual, his lips chapped and the skin around his nose dull and dry. He imagines Hashirama doesn’t look much better. That would explain why he hadn’t noticed how sick Madara had gotten; the exhaustion of navigating their relationship and the delegation was grueling emotional labor, no doubt. 

Just as Izuna opens his mouth to console his brother, there’s a shuffling sound at the close end of the hallway. Immediately, Madara straightens, his arm shooting forward to cover Izuna’s exposed side. 

“It’s probably a member of the delegation,” Izuna reassures him. Madara hesitates for just a moment longer, his arm braced protectively across Izuna’s body- Izuna has the fleeting thought that this is less the Madara he knows and more the Madara he knew, skittish and sensitive and ever-aware of Tajima’s position in the compound or the battelfield lest he come home in a fouler mood than usual- but relaxes against the wall again, letting his eyes slip shut. “Probably going outside to smoke,” Madara comments, “The drapes in the boardroom do look awfully flammable.” 

When Izuna turns back to Madara, there’s a dark, purplish silhouette of a woman against the floor, and he jumps, practically yowls like a startled cat. Madara jolts upright, his eyes brilliantly red and wide. 

Mito is standing just beyond the threshold of the room, her expression equally shocked and deeply apologetic. Izuna gives her a quizzical look. 

“‘Ana asaf,” she says gently, bowing to them, “Hal ‘ant bakhyr?”

Izuna swallows dryly, not entirely sure how or why she’s capable of speaking their language. “Balaa,” he stammers, “Kayf taerif hdha lugha?”

Mito shrugs, laughs politely, and sinks to her knees beside Izuna. He flinches, and Madara stays perfectly still against the wall as he glares daggers at her. Her bright, reddish hair is piled in neat buns on either side of her head, her dark eyes painted with lustrous green and purple paints. She has a decidedly catlike appearance to her, but her expression is unreadable and coy, and Izuna feels the back of his neck prickle.

Every nerve in his body feels like it’s on fire- the instinct to throw himself between Madara and anybody besides Hashirama, Hikaku, or Naori is strong, nagging, practically tugging at his sleeve- but Madara just gives Mito a pointed, sour look, his sharingan whirling dangerously, almost curiously as she extends a delicate, seal-stained hand to him. 

“You’re sick, aren’t you, Uchiha-san?”

“That’s not your concern,” Madara mutters.

Mito snorts, covering her mouth with her sleeve. 

“Your friend is worried about you,” she continues, her free hand still offered to him, “Hashirama. That’s his name, isn’t it? Since you stepped out, he’s been more fidgety than usual, and he keeps looking at the door expecting you to come back in. He must be a very poor sensor.” 

Madara half gapes, half scowls at her, but before he can get a word out, Izuna is howling with laughter. 

He watches, awestruck, as Izuna rolls onto his side, his cheeks flushed and his eyes damp at the corners from laughing. Mito is giggling to herself, her sleeve just in front of her mouth to hide her wry grin. Madara wonders if maybe he’s suffering from oxygen deprivation and has begun to hallucinate.

Izuna had always been the more trusting of the two of them, generally. Though he had been wary of the Senju at first- all of the clan had been, really- but it was unusual to see him light up so quickly when just a moment before he had been pressed against Madara like Mito meant to drag them into hell by their ankles. 

He looks young. So does she. Far too young to be thrust into an unhappy marriage with a stubborn clan head or any of his distant cousins. Madara feels a bit sad for her, truth be told. 

“‘Ant mudhak,” Izuna giggles, pulling himself back into a sitting position, “You’re Tobirama’s age, right?” 

Madara clears his throat before she can answer. Mito and Izuna, who had both begun to lean forward towards each other like scheming, overeager children, jump slightly. 

“Shouldn’t you have an entourage?” Madara asks, raising his eyebrows. 

Mito narrows her eyes and smiles. 

“We’re a small clan, Uchiha-san,” she says quietly, “Renowned, well respected, but small. That’s the whole reason we’ve come here in the first place. If only we had enough money, we would love to have a village of our own-”

Madara feels as though a switch has been flipped somewhere in the back of his mind. He sits up straight. 

“-maybe on a swath of coastal land at the edge of the country. My father only wants some sense of stability, really, and all he has to offer you is my hand in marriage. That’s rather sad, isn’t it?” 

Mito has a beautiful smile, Madara thinks. 

Izuna groans and leans forward again, bracing his hands on the ground in front of him like a wounded but overexcited dog at his master’s feet. “I’m sorry, Mito. That’s horrible, isn’t it, aniki? Mito, how do you know our language anyways?” 

Hashirama can’t keep himself from glancing at the door. 

He knows very well that Madara is giving sweet Izuna an earful about the stunt he’d pulled with Tobirama, that they’ve probably hidden themselves in an unfinished stretch of the library or an empty niche, have gone hoarse from bickering and will come back, perhaps after Mito’s fifth bathroom break of the morning. 

Tobirama is sitting quietly beside him, trying to change the quality of his usually icy chakra to something undulating and soothing to keep both of them calm. Hashirama clings to it like a lifeline, too exhausted to search for Madara’s just beyond the boardroom door. The Uzumaki delegation is growing increasingly insistent, insisting that they’ll retaliate unless the marriage contract with Mito is fulfilled. Hashirama doesn’t have the energy to finesse to explain what Izuna and Tobirama have done, and given that the Uzumaki have not taken kindly to Madara, he’s left trying to come up with some legitimate reason he can’t marry Mito. 

Truth be told, even without Madara in the picture, he isn’t sure he’d want to. It wasn’t that he’d never felt particularly attracted to women, but Mito was smart and kind and cut from the same cloth as Madara in that her humor was subtle and wickedly dry- it felt wrong to take advantage of her as a unit of leverage. He got the sense that Mito was equally apprehensive, if the hot, nervous flush on her face and frequent bathroom breaks were any indication. 

Distantly, Hashirama is thinking that, yes, Madara was right, the drapes do look particularly flammable, and maybe he should offer the Uzumaki the money for an entourage for Mito, when the door bursts open and Izuna comes barreling in with the brightest smile Hashirama thinks he’s ever seen.

With a harsh breath, Madara comes in behind him with a paper envelope and a small pile of scrolls. Hashirama’s breath catches in his throat. When did Madara start looking so tired? How hadn’t he noticed before?

He watches, dazed, as Madara surrenders the entirety of his fortune to the Uzumaki, and unfurls a detailed map of the country, pointing eagerly to a small swatch of island land just off the coast, a week’s journey from their village. 

All the while, he can hear Tobirama calling for him, quietly, desperately, can hear Mito come back from her last bathroom break looking like the cat whose caught the cream, can make out the grim, disparaging lines of the Uzumaki clan head’s face- looking all too much like Butsuma- as he takes Madara’s hand. The Uchiha elders are roaring their disapproval, and the Senju sit in stunned silence. The boardroom breaks out into chaos. 

But the only thing Hashirama is actively aware of the way Madara struggles to breathe around the mass of dead tissue in his chest, and how he didn’t notice it sooner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> madara tries to reassure izuna that he's alright, and not to start worrying.  
hara means bullshit LOL.  
mito apologizes first, and then asks if madara is alright.   
izuna asks mito how the fuck she knows what theyre saying.  
after the tension has diffused, izuna tells her he thinks she's funny.


	15. XV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my cousin has been married mashallah ive been so busy!!! wrote a nice long chapter to make up for it <3

It takes until about mid-afternoon for all of the appropriate forms to be signed by all parties, and longer still for Madara to subdue the Uchiha elders. Hashirama understands- he can only imagine how the Senju elders would react if he had offered the Uzumaki every cent of his inheritance along with the only remaining swath of land to their clan’s name- but he really hadn’t expected it to work. The Uzumaki had been pretty clear about wanting to settle in their village. Then again, it was likely that Hashirama had misread something, that something had flown entirely over his head that hadn’t occurred to even Tobirama, not that doublespeak was his younger brother’s forte, really. Tobirama was painfully earnest. 

Mito had come in at Madara’s heels, wearing a knowing smile, her hair unraveling from the pins on the sides of her head. Hashirama was willing to bet no small amount of money that her father would disown her in spite of the success of the delegation- older clan heads tended to be particularly unforgiving towards their daughters in their trespasses. There were far worse things to happen to princesses than being disowned and left to their own devices in unfamiliar villages. 

Even so, if Mito was disowned, Hashirama would see to it that she was kept comfortable here; Izuna had taken quickly to her, running to her side after the delegation and chattering with a sort of tempered excitement to her, introducing her properly to Tobirama in a secluded corner of the boardroom. As Hashirama left, he caught the ghost of a smile on Tobirama’s lips, which was as good an indication of any of Mito’s character. That being said, whether Mito left the village with her clan or remained here contended on her father’s response to her insolence- if it could even be called that, given that she’d secured their clan a comfortable swatch of land and a hefty inheritance. She had done what was right. 

More importantly, Madara had done what was right, had done what would secure himself a future with Hashirama and their brothers, had done what he could to preserve their dream of peace. It was astounding. Madara had disappeared early in the morning to scold Izuna and come back bereft of all his material wealth and his family’s land, but looking stern and much better for it. Sometimes Hashirama wondered how, exactly, he managed such things, but Madara had always been clever in a way that Hashirama never could be.

Though, for all his strengths, Madara sometimes had immense difficulty in communicating his needs. This was more evident now than ever. 

In the wake of all the commotion in the boardroom, Madara had managed to spare Hashirama a moment just long enough to promise that he would be finished by late afternoon, and to go rest while he consoled his elders and wrapped things up with the Uzumaki. It took every ounce of self control Hashirama had not to lunge forward and kiss him, to shake his shoulders and ask what he thought he was doing- Madara knew what he was doing. Madara almost always knew what he was doing. Hashirama suspected he knew just as well that he was slowly killing himself. 

He decides to make himself at home in Madara’s kitchen, rifling through his cupboards for tea. Most of what Madara owns is in neat, sparse rows of glass jars or metal cups, labeled in his language with shaky penmanship. Hashirama still isn’t particularly good at reading or speaking the Uchihas’ language, but he knows by now that the small tin with the long, angular shape and two dots on either end is the freshest, most palatable of the teas in the cabinet. Hashirama had made a mental note to himself early in the spring to put time aside to start Madara an herb garden, but the delegation had swallowed up more of his time than he would have liked. He fills a pot in the sink and sets it to boil, making another mental note to ensure that the village plumbing project was properly completed. It was Naori’s responsibility primarily, as per Madara’s recommendation, but he had assigned a handful of Senju to work with her for their understanding of sustainability. 

Hashirama takes his seat again, grimacing when the wicker of the stool creaks beneath his weight. He thinks of the dull ache in his own chest, which had finally begun to resolve itself, and wonders how he hadn’t noticed that something was very wrong with Madara. When they slept, it was often with Madara’s head on his chest, his legs thrown across Hashirama’s hips- but Hashirama always kept his hand close between Madara’s shoulderblades, pushing chakra through the heel of his palm to lull him to sleep. It had worked wonders, but Hashirama hadn’t been thinking to check for anything like burnt, necrotic tissue. Madara had always had migraines, had always gotten sick when it was humid, and Hashirama had always given him herbs during the interludes of battles- he supposed he had tricked himself into thinking that Madara could be perfectly self reliant. 

He’s expecting Izuna to come home first, maybe with his new entourage in tow- Hashirama remembers, distantly, that he’s technically married Tobirama- but it’s Madara who slides the door open when Hashirama is halfway through his cup of tea, his familiar, rattling sigh the first sound he hears in hours. Hashirama practically leaps to his feet.

At the front of the house, Madara is toeing off his sandals, his hand white-knuckled and gripping the doorframe to keep his balance. His dark hair is swept back into a low bun, exposing the silver studs along the sharp curve of his left ear. There’s a small, open sore that Hashirama hadn’t noticed before just beneath the fading tattoo at the corner of his eye that he’d so often mistook for makeup. He tries to savor the image of Madara like this, stern but triumphant and so, so beautiful. 

“Hey.”

Madara whirls around, his expression so visibly panicked that it startles Hashirama, and then softens. 

“Hashirama.”

Before he can get a word out, Madara has closed the distance between them and thrown his arms around his neck, his weight pulling both of them towards the ground. Hashirama grunts softly as Madara’s hands tug at his hair, and sinks to the ground with him, instinctively craning his neck to the side so Madara can rest his chin against the crook of his shoulder. 

There’s a certain desperation rolling off of Madara in dark, hot waves that churns Hashirama’s stomach. He wants to scold him. He wants to ask Madara how it got this bad in the first place, why he never told him he was sick, ask him what exactly he was trying to accomplish when he surrendered his inheritance to the Uzumaki when they had absolutely no right to it, and why he did it all without consulting him. There’s a hot, red spark of anger in Hashirama’s chest. It burns for no longer than a minute. 

Madara makes a dry, broken sound against him, and Hashirama maneuvers himself so he’s sitting in a hurdler’s stretch, Madara still kneeling between his legs. The house is pindrop quiet for an instant before Madara starts to cry. The daylight wavers against the paper windows, casting bright, golden squares of light against Madara’s temple. It’s all Hashirama can see with the way they’re pressed so close together. He tucks Madara’s hair behind his ear and kisses the side of his head. 

He lets him cry. Madara deserves this moment of reprieve far more than he does. In the past three months, Hashirama has seen more sides of Madara than he knew existed- a doting older brother, a reluctant bureaucrat, a friend, a lover, a diplomat, a vessel for the righteous anger of his ancestors. Even if he hadn’t done it alone, the burden of simply being under the circumstances was far too much for them to bear together. Hashirama feels certain that when the time comes, Madara will offer him his shoulder and his warmth and his light all the same. 

Madara feels impossibly small against him, and Hashirama has just enough time to wonder if he’s lost weight since the start of the delegation before a raw, anguished sob tears from his throat. “Ah-” Hashirama grimaces, his hand finding its way to the back of Madara’s neck, “Madara.”

When he pulls Madara closer, he’s met with no resistance. Madara sounds less like he’s crying and more like he’s on the verge of hyperventilating if the way his chest heaves is any indication. Hesitantly, Hashirama starts to push healing chakra through his back with the hand not braced against his neck. He finds a small patch of dead tissue and figures it’s as good a place as any to start. He flexes his fingers experimentally, trying to wring the dead tissue from the lower chamber of his lungs cell by cell, trying to push new oxygen through them as he works. It doesn’t do much, but amongst his hysterics, Madara heaves a great sigh of relief at the warmth in his chest. 

The sun has already begun to set. It’s amazing how quickly time seems to pass now. It’s amazing how slowly the world moves in the interim. 

He’s at a loss as to what he can say in the language they share that would bring Madara any sort of real comfort. He was never fluent in his native tongue- the Senju had long ago travelled to Fire Country from their home land and pointedly left any connection to it behind them as they travelled- and he isn’t particularly fluent in Madara’s. 

For a moment, he thinks about his mother. 

He conjures up a memory of her, fuzzy around the edges, her palm mottled with light pigment and glowing green as she healed his scraped knees. He couldn’t have been much older than four, but he was inconsolable, not yet steeled to the world. She had kissed his forehead and murmured something, something. Hashirama wasn’t sure he remembered correctly.

Kia tau, she had cooed, settle down. 

Hashirama clears his throat. 

“Kia tau.” 

The accent is broken and feels like a foreign inflection on his tongue, and he butchers the pronunciation so thoroughly that he imagines his ancestors are laughing at him beyond some mortal veil. Madara’s breath hitches in his throat. A silent moment passes before he shifts, leaning forward to press his cheek against Hashirama’s chest, exhaling shakily. 

“Kia tau,” Hashirama repeats, no more confident than the first time. He brings his arms up around Madara protectively, hauling him closer. Madara makes a quiet, strangled sound, hiking his leg up and pulling himself into Hashirama’s lap. He knocks over his sandals when he moves, and without thinking about it, Hashirama’s chakra coils itself into small, dense vines from the floorboards and sets them upright again. He smiles to himself. Sometimes it was convenient that his chakra seemed to have a mind of its own. 

Madara is still crying when the sun goes down on them, hoarse and dry and in fluctuating pitches of hysteria. Nobody has come home yet, and Hashirama anticipates that they won’t for a while- he’ll have plenty of time to give Tobirama and Izuna a piece of his mind when Madara is well again, and plenty of time to check on Mito and the development of the village all the same. 

Madara only speaks to apologize, and to recite old, broken prayers between bouts of anguished, frustrated sobs. Hashirama only speaks to comfort him. He thinks distantly that perhaps this is the work he was born to do- but even if it isn’t, that there’s no better waste of a life than helping Madara to put the pieces of himself whole again. 

The inn had been a comfortable enough place to stay. It was unfinished, still flanked by scaffolding, most of the rooms on the first floor occupied by the civilian staff, many of whom were only half moved in by the end of the delegation. They had given Mito pitying looks as she sat in the small lobby, cooing at her over the edges of laundry baskets and leather binders. 

Kousuke, her eldest brother, watches her from the near threshold of the hallway as their delegation files quietly out of the inn’s back exit, trunks in tow and expressions somber. His expression was stern, skeptical, unforgiving- he had the same light eyes as her, but they were cold and narrow where hers, she had been told, were inviting and bright. 

Mito understood his anger- she had betrayed their father. Even if she had done so with her clan’s best interest at heart, she had still betrayed him, had long ago taught herself fuinjutsu and the languages of other clans where princesses were expressed prohibited from doing so, had fought tooth and nail since even before the delegation began to not be married off to the founders of this strange village- who so obviously held torches for each other, she might have added-, and yes, she had secured them a swath of land and enough resources for them to build a village of their own- but she doubted she would live to see it.

Her father was humiliated. She didn’t quite care enough to understand why, when she had only done what was right. If Kousuke had done what she had, no doubt he would be celebrated by their family as a prodigy and a diplomat. Perhaps being disowned wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to her. 

She spares a last look at Kosuke- it’s probably the last time they’ll see each other. She supposes she should be grateful that her only brother survived the war, but when she looks at him, unyielding and cold, she finds that she can’t feel a thing.

In the end, Kosuke disappears down the hall, and her father never speaks to her at all.   
After sunset, one of the civilian staff finally approaches her. She’s an older looking woman with fair skin and narrow, knowing eyes, and she offers Mito a small, ceramic cup of tea and drops to her haunches. 

“Your clan has left,” the woman says matter of factly, “You aren’t leaving with them?” 

“No,” Mito says plainly, lifting the steaming cup to her lips.

The woman gives her a sad, despairing look.

“You’re a princess, aren’t you?” 

Mito freezes. Sure, she’s a princess. A princess who no longer has an inheritance or a family or a home, who may have never had a family or a home to begin with, a headstrong princess with a poor temper and the misfortune of being born into one of the most archaic clans this side of the world. She was a princess. Maybe she was still a princess- she couldn’t say with any sort of certainty. 

Instead, she shrugs, and takes a sip of her tea. 

“That’s okay,” she says to the civilian woman. 

“I could let you stay-”

“I don’t have enough money for a room. I wouldn’t feel comfortable staying here for free, and I’m not qualified to work off my debt here.”

The woman purses her lips, as if to say, ‘I’m sure that’s not true’, but she says nothing. Instead, she pats Mito’s thigh and gets back to her feet, returning to her abandoned laundry cart and leaving the princess with her tea. 

Mito knows herself well enough to recognize that she’ll be inconsolable once the shock wears off- but she doesn’t quite know what she’d be mourning. 

She spends another hour or so in the lobby in relative solitude before the front door swings open again. 

The woman at the reception desk raises her head for an instant before returning to her binder. There’s a Senju woman standing in the doorway that Mito thinks looks distantly familiar- her clan’s crest emblazoned on the front of her shirt, halved by the high waist of her pants. She looks decidedly more casual than Mito had ever seen any of the Senju, comfortable and calm, like she’d crossed the threshold of the lobby a million times before and never once thought anything of it. Her eyes fall to Mito immediately, surprisingly light and kelly green, and the princess suppresses a shudder as the Senju tilts her head back and sucks her teeth. 

“Your clan’s left,” the Senju woman says matter of factly, folding her arms across her chest. Mito says nothing, her eyes travelling the length of the woman’s body to her shoes, clunky wooden sandals that add a good inch and a half to her height, making her look all the more imposing- and yet somehow not imposing at all. 

Mito crinkles her nose. 

“Yes, they have,” Mito says flatly, “Is that of some concern to you? Do you not think me capable of caring for myself without them?” She doesn’t have the wherewithal or emotional capacity for niceties this late in the day, certainly not under the circumstances. She folds her hands in her lap and angles her body away from the Senju woman- “Toka. Do you think that little of me?” 

“I hardly know you,” Toka says cooly, shifting her weight to one foot, “Uchiha Naori has offered you a place to stay. Free of charge. If you choose to stay here indefinitely, there are more than enough options for housing already.”

“I’m perfectly fine on my own,” Mito protests, glancing sideways at her, “Besides- where is ‘here’, exactly?” 

Much to Mito’s surprise, Toka barks out a short, dry laugh- it’s hard to believe the woman is related to Hashirama, who seemed comparatively willowy and warm- and clutches her stomach. Mito raises an eyebrow at her.

Toka rubs the center of her chest and heaves a sigh. 

“Hashirama wants Madara to name it. I don’t think he has any right to, but there’s no sense in picking a fight with him when he has his heart set on something.” 

Mito shifts her weight towards Toka, her interest piqued. 

“He wants Madara to name it?” 

Toka’s eyes go wide for just an instant. She says nothing. Mito grins. 

“Don’t start,” Toka says, exasperated, “Please. I don’t have the energy. Just come with me. Naori will feel slighted if you don’t accept her hospitality.”

Mito hums thoughtfully. Toka drums her fingers against her bicep. The woman at the reception desk purposefully bows her head behind the high edge of her desk to shield herself from the mounting tension in the lobby. 

“I’m telling you from experience. I don’t know what it is, but the Uchiha are generous to the point that it’s infuriating. Believe it or not, you’ll accrue more debt by rejecting Naori’s offer than accepting it.”

Wordlessly, Mito gets to her feet, depositing her empty teacup on the edge of the receptionist’s desk. Toka watches her expectantly as she gathers the train of her robes, one foot over the lobby threshold. 

Toka calls over her shoulder to thank the receptionist for her hospitality as they leave, the sliding door of the inn clattering shut behind them. Mito studies her profile as they walk.  
They’re silent for most of the walk, Toka’s eyes narrowed cautiously, Mito pointing her gaze decidedly elsewhere when she occasionally senses Toka’s eyes on her. It’s a pleasant, silence, but a loaded one- Mito is sure Toka is smart enough to understand what has happened since the conclusion of the delegation- and Mito finds herself increasingly looking forward to holing up in Naori’s home for the night; if someone had told her months ago that the Uchiha were comparatively less intense than the Senju, she would have laughed in their face. 

The Uchiha were talkative, if nothing else- Izuna had been chatty and open where Tobirama was stony and quietly curious. She supposed that Izuna may have acted coldly towards her during wartime, but suspected that his nature was fundamentally warm.  
“Why is it that you’re skeptical of Madara, still?” Mito asks suddenly. Toka slows her pace to a halt and gawks at her for a moment. 

“You seem to like Naori, and I remember you getting along well with Hikaku in the course of your travels together, but you seem to hold a grudge against Madara. Am I right?” 

There’s that curt, dry laugh again, and Toka is clutching her stomach, Mito smiles to herself. 

“You- You are. There’s really no reason for me not to like him though, is there? I’m just frightened of him, I think.”

Mito snorts.

“You’re taller than him, if I remember correctly,” she snickers, “Not to mention his illness.”

“His-” Toka’s expression takes on a strange, implaccable quality for an instant, “His what?”

“Ah,” Mito laughs breathily. She reaches out and takes Toka’s hand, patting it gently before letting it fall limp against her side again. She thinks that maybe she’d imagined the pretty blush that blossomed along Toka’s throat. “I don’t quite think it was my place to tell you that. I imagine Hashirama-sama is taking care of it anyways.” 

Toka scoffs, playfully raising her elbow to Mito’s side. 

“Izuna was right,” she says softly, “You are funny.”

Tobirama isn’t sure when he’d begun to think of Izuna and him as inseparable.

Maybe it had been that first morning they’d spent together in the measly library at the old Uchiha settlement, Izuna moving slow and careful to not reopen his injury, his dark eyes curious and imploring. Maybe it had been when they were knee deep in a snow drift in the foothills, their arms locked together as they staggered after Kagami, Izuna lifting his hand every so often to shield Tobirama’s eyes from the sunlight where it reflected off the snow. Maybe it had been when Izuna pulled him into Naori’s bathroom and tucked between the door and the cabinet, sheepishly explaining old Uchiha marriage rituals. 

No, Tobirama thinks- it had to have been long before that. 

They’re at Tobirama’s house for once that night- Hashirama and Madara were sleeping soundly when they arrived at Izuna’s, still half-dressed in their clothes from the delegation, the blankets thrown from Madara’s bed in their haste to join each other in sleep, and it would have been unkind to stay and risk waking them. Not to mention, both of them were still due for earfuls from their about their botched marriage rites. It was for that same reason they decided to avoid Naori’s, though Izuna suspected she would be offering the spare room to Mito if her clan had left without her. Naori had a special talent for outdoing her clansmen in their ongoing contest of hospitality, after all, and was probably best equipped to provide for Mito until she was back on her feet.

It’s sparsely furnished- Hashirama had not yet finished unpacking their belongings, and Tobirama doubted either of them would get around to it for a while with how little time they spent in their home. Hashirama had set up the altar in the spare room, and managed to unfold their rugs in an uneven mosaic across the front room, but other than that, there was very little in the way of furniture in this home. Not that Izuna seemed to mind- he’d sprawled out in the front room in a small pile of pillows and furs and wrapped his arms around Tobirama’s waist, humming contentedly every so often. 

Tobirama doesn’t bother trying to push him away. There’s really no longer a place for self-preservation in their relationship, and he can’t bring himself to care. He tugs Izuna’s ponytail loose and cards a hand through his hair, his fingers coming away sticky with kohl from the corners of his eyes. 

He looks down at Izuna. The younger boy looks more peaceful than Tobirama thinks he’d ever seen him, his dark lashes fluttering lightly as he fights sleep, the patterns he’d painted on the night before still clean and clear, the pigment just a few shades deeper than his skin. 

“I would marry you,” Tobirama says suddenly. Izuna’s eyes fly open. Tobirama clears his throat. “If you wanted to do everything right, maybe in a few years, I’d marry you.”

There’s a nerve wracking moment of silence on Izuna’s part, the air in the house heavy and still as he studies Tobirama’s face for any sign of insincerity. Tobirama licks his lips. It was too late to take back what he had said, anyways- there was no sense in being anxious about Izuna’s response, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. 

“Is that a threat or a promise?” 

Unflinching, Tobirama pulls Izuna close, the gesture so desperate and sudden that it knocks the wind from the smaller boy’s lungs. He braces his hands against Tobirama’s back and laughs, burying his nose in the crook of his neck. 

“That doesn’t mean I’m in love with you,” he says halfheartedly, “I’m still not sure.”   
“That’s fine,” Tobirama says quickly, tightening his arms around his shoulders, “That’s alright. And it’s both, to answer your question.”

“Hm.” 

Izuna pauses for a moment and then tilts his head back slightly, pressing a chaste, experimental kiss to Tobirama’s chin. 

The wind howls outside, rattling the paper windows and kicking up small clouds of dead, rotting leaves. Tobirama lifts Izuna’s bangs off his forehead and presses his lips against the bridge of his nose, and then pointedly shifts to rest his chin on his head. He’d rather things move slowly than not at all. If the way Izuna hums contentedly and hides the pretty blush that spreads across his nose is any indication, he probably feels similarly.


	16. XVI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy 2020 am back and better than ever ! <3 i finished finals a while ago and i only have another chapter or two in this fic, and am slowly going back and editing existing chapters so ill post an update when that revision is done. thank you all for your patience, if you are in school or uni i hope your winter breaks were restful!!!!! if you are interested there are more parts to this AU as i love building it, they will be out soon now that my life has calmed down

Hashirama spends the rest of the spring carefully stacking mounds of dirt and sowing grass seed in the land behind Madara’s home. Gardening quickly becomes his favorite hobby- he grows himself minutely detailed bonsai trees and builds small, intricate mounds in the earth as an abstract way of measuring moon cycles, weaves a tall wicker fence with deft fingers at Madara’s bedside while he sleeps and surprises him one morning with an herb garden against the side of his house.

Their house. Hashirama is starting to feel certain of it. 

In the mornings, Madara pulls himself into a sitting position, agonizingly slow. Hashirama rolls his robes past his shoulders to his waist and rubs menthol gels and pastes in their clinical stages on his bare chest and back, marveling at how the rattle in Madara’s chest quiets with each passing day. 

Their afternoons are busy with delegations- hospital proceedings, new armistices, processing reparations. Hashirama urges Madara to sit at the head of the boardroom table every time, standing at the smaller man’s shoulder like a sentinel, a pillar of strength and mint colored silk and often, Madara will reach up unthinkingly and pull Hashirama’s hand to rest against the side of his neck. Hashirama frets whether Madara is sick or not; naturally, some days are harder than others, the dark skin at the base of Madara’s throat raw from scratching, his arms wrapped tightly around his stomach by the end of delegations and his jaw set to hold back hot blood and nausea, and other days Madara just sits, tired, gloating and sated and close to the man he loves. 

More than anything, he knows that Madara wants to enjoy the fruits of their labor- but he understands as well as anyone that there’s a tremendous amount of work yet to be done, at home as well as in the village. Hashirama builds a small shrine for their mothers and their late brothers in Madara’s living room, and Izuna has taken to whining in the kitchen in the mornings about wanting to start an arts council for the village, or complaining about his increasingly fraught relationship with Tobirama, who now insists on spending every waking moment doing medical research in the archives. Of course, it isn't realistic to rely on Hashirama to heal all of the village's sick and dying indefinitely, but Izuna was more interested in applying his knowledge of anatomy to art and dance, where Tobirama was growing to be more of a hard and fast scientist or medic-nin.

In the mornings, Madara hums his way through tea agreeably. There have been far worse things to worry about than cleaning ash from their shrine and sewing dance shoes for Izuna.

The world only goes dark for an instant. 

It’s almost summer when the Hyuuga armistice is finally settled. Madara had adamantly refused to accept them into the village unless they agreed to dissolve their slave system- which was thankfully still in its infancy- and award reparations to members of the branch family, and though negotiations were even more fraught than with the Uzumaki, Hashirama had bargained them into the village with a small portion of his inheritance. Evidently, the Hyuuga were just as worse for wear as any of the other warring clans. 

Madara didn’t have the energy to be furious about Hashirama’s careless redistribution of his inheritance, not when Hashirama was so patient with him, so attentive and kind that it made his head spin. 

It’s Hashirama, naturally, who suggests that the village and Hyuuga delegations go out for drinks at the civilian bar near the administrative tower, and Madara can’t help but to oblige him, even if his head hurts worse than usual, either from the stress of the delegation or allergies or both. He slots himself against Hashirama’s side as they drink, Izuna occasionally drifting in and out of his arms as he dances drunken circles around the patio with Tobirama, Kagami, and some of the younger, shier members of the Hyuuga clan. Madara makes it a point to squeeze Izuna’s shoulders when he comes close, to kiss the side of his head until he squeals and scurries away again. Once, Tobirama crosses the room to them and presses the tip of his nose against his brother’s in acknowledgement, and the earnest, flattered smile on Hashirama’s face makes Madara’s heart skip a beat once. 

“Reconnecting with our culture,” Hashirama explains, sliding closer to Madara so their shoulders touch, “It’s a customary greeting. Toka suggested we reintroduce it somehow.” 

Madara scoffs and crinkles his nose, giving Hashirama a playful shove as a pretense to move closer. “I’m sure all that anthropological work Mito’s gotten her involved with is a catalyst for that.” 

He can feel eyes on them every so often as they drink, glassy, imploring, Hyuuga-blue stares, though there’s less scrutiny there, and more of a gentle, wordless understanding. They’re rather unlike the Uzumaki in that way, Madara thinks, though his initial perception of the clan had been challenged when some of his falcons returned letters to Mito from some of her estranged cousins wishing her well and hoping for correspondence.

“Toka and Mito make a wonderful couple, though they’ve moved rather quickly, haven’t they?” Hashirama remarks, resting the lip of his sake glass beneath his bottom lip. Madara rolls his eyes. 

“Mito didn’t have much of a choice. I'm sure Naori's hospitality grew oppressive very quickly,” he murmurs, and drops his voice to a whisper, “Though comparatively, we’ve moved at a snail’s pace, haven’t we?” 

“I want you to feel comfortable,” Hashirama says, suddenly very serious, “I wouldn’t care if you never let me touch you again, so long as that’s what you need.” 

“Let's not kid ourselves. You’d be heartbroken,” Madara snorts, admiring the pink flush that’s blossomed across his nose, “You’re already drunk. Go socialize for a while and I’ll walk us home.” 

Promptly, Hashirama abandons his empty glass on the high counter beside them and pulls Madara close to rest their noses together. Madara prickles for a moment, and then relaxes into the gesture, responding in kind by cupping his jaw and holding him close, just for a second too long. 

“Habibi,” Madara says softly, “Adhhab waistamtae. Go have fun.”

Hashirama withdraws slowly, a peaceful, adoring smile on his face. “That reminds me, I think we should add a language program to the academy. I bet it would improve literacy rates and inter-”

“Go,” Madara snorts, shoving Hashirama into the fray and settling back against the counter.

Madara allows himself a moment to take in the room then, the gentle glow of paper lanterns and the flash of metallic embroidery on the sleeves of the Hyuuga delegation’s robes. Across the room, he watches Izuna move to tackle Kagami, catches a brief glimpse of Mito twirling small circles around Toka, overhears Hashirama already comparing haircare routines with a small group of the Hyuuga. He closes his eyes for an instant, maybe just an instant too long. When he opens them again, he’s about an inch away from his body, watching blood drip from the base of his skull.

When Madara opens his eyes again, he’s looking down at Izuna’s bloodied remains in the snow at the old Uchiha settlement. His hands are sticky with hot blood and loose threads from Izuna’s ruined robes, and he looks up to see Hashirama’s arm, dislocated from his torso, and the side of his worried, earnest face. Hashirama guides Madara’s hands to the center of Izuna’s chest, electricity buzzing against the back of his hand where Hashirama touches him. 

He closes his eyes again, just for a moment, and opens them to see Hashirama waist deep in the Nakano, his hair barely reaching his shoulders and hanging in twin pigtails. They were so much younger then, and are no less naive now; Hashirama is looking at Madara like he’s a sign from the divine, but Madara can feel the now-familiar sting of the sharingan burning at the back of his eyes, licking up the length of his nerves like a burning fuse.

“You’re so beautiful,” Hashirama sounds like he’s speaking underwater, “Oh, Madara, you’re so beautiful.”

He takes Madara’s wrists and closes the distance between them. Madara draws a steadying breath and closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, Hashirama is kneeling over him at the edge of a clearing. There’s a tangle of thornbush in Hashirama’s hair, which has grown to his last rib now, and Madara can see the white of his shinbone and the muscle of his calf where Tajima’s hand-me-downs have torn at the knee. He tries to focus on the small sliver of scar on the side of Hashirama’s nostril, and the soft, earthy sound of his bones sliding back into place and being knit sturdy with vines from the mokuton.

It hurts, he wants to say- but his throat is raw from firefight and swelling up around dead and drying embers.

“I know,” Hashirama says, as if reading his mind. In the strange, low light of the forest, Hashirama’s eyes look almost green. “I know how terribly you must be hurting. I’m sorry I can’t stay to take care of you longer.” 

When Hashirama moves to repair the exposed connective tissue in his leg, has to bite his tongue to keep from crying out. He jerks his head to the side and sets his jaw. Half of Hashirama’s face disappears, sliding out of focus as if refracted through a glass.

“Stay still,” Hashirama says quietly, “I’m with you.” 

Madara closes his eyes.

The first thing he becomes aware of again is a portion of the Hyuuga clan head’s profile. He can only make out the closest third of his broad, pale forehead, his dark eyebrow, the brownish socket of his eye, and then the world goes glassy. There’s a high, persistent bell-tone ringing in his ears and soft, imploring weight on his shoulders, another beneath the base of his skull, and another just below his sternum. A curtain of dark hair eclipses his vision almost entirely but for one of Hashirama’s eyes. 

Madara groans and blinks slowly, trying to get his eyes to focus properly. He becomes distantly aware of a third pair of hands travelling from his jaw, slowly down his neck, fingers pressing purposefully against chakra points as they move. He feels hypersensitive and hollow all at once- he quickly finds himself unable to lift his hands or to move his body at all, and there’s a persistent ache at the back of his head, radiating down his neck to his chest. 

The ringing in his ears begins to subside, just for an instant, and he hears Izuna’s voice, uncharacteristically panicked. 

“I’m fine,” he says softly, “Zuzu, I’m fine.” Somebody slides their robe beneath his head carefully, and Madara feels hot blood dribble down the curve of his neck. He doesn’t have the presence of mind to flinch.

Hashirama’s face comes into perfect focus- about three quarters of it anyways. Madara can feel his nose crinkling as he narrows his eyes and tries to focus better, but there’s an overwhelming pressure at the back of his eyes and he closes them tightly. Slowly, the people around him withdraw their hands from his body, save for a light touch against his temple, another against the base of his skull, and now somebody’s hand in his. He opens his eyes again when he feels the weight of Hashirama’s forehead against his. 

“...Are you still with us?”

Madara makes a soft, affirmative sound, and tries to summon the strength to squeeze Hashirama’s hand. 

“I’m okay,” he murmurs, “I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt.”

Hashirama withdraws enough for Madara to see that his features are set uncharacteristically grim, his brow furrowed and his jaw set and straining. Madara swallows. The hand resting against his temple twitches- Izuna runs his fingertips along his hairline. Madara knows him well enough- it's his way of asking for reassurance. 

“Am I okay?”

Hashirama doesn’t say anything. 

“You’re not acting like I’m okay. You’re usually so talkative, but you’re quiet right now.” 

“Can you move at all?”

“...Something’s wrong with my eyes,” Madara says quietly. Somewhere above him, Izuna draws a loud, shuddering breath. 

“Just one of them,” Hashirama says, starting to sound almost hysterical, “Try to stay awake for a few more minutes, Madara. Try not to worry. I’m doing everything I can.”

Madara hums again and closes his eyes, trying to focus on Hashirama’s hand in his, and Izuna’s fingers against the side of his head. Hashirama says something else- maybe to him, maybe to Izuna or Tobirama or one of the Hyuuga, he can’t be entirely sure- but he sounds far away, like he’s calling from the opposite edge of a canyon. Izuna tugs sharply at his hair, and Madara grimaces. His eyes feel too heavy to open now. 

Izuna pulls his hair again. “Aniki!” 

Madara groans, inwardly cringing as Hashirama shifts above him and withdraws his hand, probably to comfort Izuna. He opens his eyes slowly to see Hashirama cup his younger brother’s cheek, smoothing his thumb along the underside of Izuna’s jaw. He can only make out enough of Izuna’s face to see how profusely he’s crying, and his chest tightens with guilt. Distantly, he wonders if this is how he must have looked- how he must have felt when he found Izuna left for dead all those months ago, if Hashirama had cared just as thoroughly for him, his attention perfectly divided between them, just like this. 

He sighs deeply and swallows, forcing himself to keep his eyes open and at least partially focused on Izuna’s face. He thinks about how peacefully he’d slept after Hashirama healed him, how he’d curled up against Madara’s chest like a wildcat starved for warmth, about how when they were younger Madara had to help him to tailor Akira’s hand-me-down armor to fit him properly- Izuna was always so much thinner than the rest of their siblings. He thinks about how nicely Izuna had begun to fill out since the armistice with the Senju now that there was a comparative bounty of food to eat, how strong he looked when he stretched in the mornings he spent at home. He wants desperately to reach up and touch Izuna’s face, just to confirm that his cheeks are still healthy and full, that they haven’t sunken in again and cast bruise-dark shadows against his jaw, but his body is stubborn, and he doesn’t move a muscle.

“Izuna,” he says softly. Izuna continues carrying on as if he hadn’t heard him, his fingers tangled in Madara’s hair, tugging at his scalp. “Zuzu. Izuna. ‘Ana huna.”

Izuna pauses for a moment and looks at him, and Madara offers him a small, reassuring smile.

“I love you,” Madara says quietly, “Izuna, I love you so much.” 

“It’s okay,” Izuna says frantically, “I love you too. We love you too.”

Hashirama leans forward slightly, and Madara smiles to himself as he sees that he has one arm wrapped protectively around Izuna. He grimaces as Hashirama’s free hand slips beneath the curve of his neck and up to the back of his head, as he hears the hiss of his chakra against the wound there. His vision is still lopsided and half there, and though there’s a sense of sensation slowly returning to his arms and legs, his body refuses to move from its spot on the bar floor. 

“Alright,” Hashirama says uncertainly, “Okay, Madara. I’ve got it from here.”

“You don’t sound so sure,” Madara quips, managing a small smile. Hashirama crinkles his nose and bites his lip, swallowing thickly. 

“I’m sure. I’m positive.” 

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know what happened yet. I’ll figure it out. If you want to sleep now, you can.”

“Mmh,” Madara, with no small amount of difficulty, nods slightly, and closes his eyes.

There’s a beat of silence where Madara thinks he might have fallen asleep before Hashirama leans down and kisses the corner of his mouth. Madara is grateful he has the presence of mind to at least smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haahahahahahhaha HA aaaastigfiruallah


End file.
